The Prophecy Kids read the lightning theif
by mad 4 the doctor
Summary: Thalia, Nico and Percy read the lightning theif with the Gods
1. The Gods Reading Session

**This is about a year after Thalia becomes tree-kind **

**My story was reported and deleted, as promised i re-downloaded it but as of yet some of my chapters are no longer bold sooner or later i'll correct that but sadly i haven't the time to yet so hopfully it wont cause a problem but just a warning.**

Ch1

**No P.O.V**

The gods of Olympus were gathered for the solicitous having the usual arguments:-

"MOTHER RHEA ALWAYS LIKED YOU BEST!"

"THE UNDERWORLD IS OVERFLOWING AND YOUR ACCUSING ME!?"

"SEA DISASTERS ARE WAY BETTER THAN SKY DISASTERS IT'S A FACT"

"YOU WOULDN'T BE AGUEING IF YOU ATE MORE CEREAL"

"SHUT UP ABOUT THE CEREAL WOMAN!"

"YEAH CAUSE CHUCKING A BABY OF MT. OLYMPUS IS WHAT ALL FAMILIES SHOULD DO!"

"WHY DID YOU KILL MY THALIA?"

"WILL YOU SHUT UP ABOUT THE GIRL ZUES!"

Then suddenly there was a flash of light and a muffled shout as 3 people appeared from thin air.

**Thalia P.O.V**

I was stalking the sacred silver stag of Artemis, this time I was going the capture her. I thought coyly of the last time I had cornered this Stag, me, Percy and Nico had been forced to go on a mission for the gods, again. Absently she stroked her bow remembering what had happened to it. She positioned her arrow accordingly, crouched down took aim and…DAMN! The stupid dear just had to disappear didn't it? It was just like last time. She sighed and stood tall and fixed the Tiara marking her as lieutenant of the Hunters, She walked over to where the dear had been, scanning for tracks, it was just her luck, nothing, not even a single hair. She ground her foot in frustration and then the next thing she knew she was enveloped in a searing hot light, and falling, falling, falling.

**Nico P.O.V**

Nico had been wandering for a while now, about a week, he couldn't shadow travel, he'd worn himself out with all the shadow travelling he had been doing lately, so he'd had to stick to walking. Right now Nico was settling down to eat the food he'd stole…I mean liberated, from a late night café not far from where he sat now. He was thinking that maybe he'd visit Percy, it has been awhile. About two months since the end of the 2nd Titan war (About 1 month before HoO starts) he loves teasing Percy it's one of his favourite pass times right up there with teasing Thalia, wandering the Underworld and fighting monsters. After he'd finished eating there was a flash of light and a feeling not unlike shadow travelling except it was bright and warm, so basically Nico hated it. That feeling only increased when there was another flash and Nico saw the Floor about 30ft below. He shouted,

"No, no, no, no, no, argh!" dimly, at the back of his mind, he noticed someone else shouting. Until his decent suddenly slowed, his stomach still in the air somewhere above and he landed with only a light THUMP.

**Percy P.O.V**

"I hope you enjoy yourself with dad Tyson." Percy said, smiling. Tyson had been helping out with the building of the new cabins but he had gotten a dream message from dad asking him to come back and of course the big guy agreed, Percy couldn't help but feel a little, oh alright I'll admit it, very jealous of that. He never got to see dads realm, the only time he had he was half dead and the palace had been in the process of being destroyed but he pushed that aside and said, "Have fun, have a peanut sandwich for me will you?" he laughed

Tyson nodded seriously and replied with "I will have sandwich for you brother." And waded out to the surf and called back "Don't get blown up"

"I won't, I promise you, I'll say bye to Annabeth for you" and then he disappeared into the surf. He wished he could have gone with him but then again, Percy did have a closer than most relationship with his godly parent, probably the best in camp, he shouldn't be asking for more, how many times had Poseidon gone out on a limb for him? Quite a few, but hey a guy can dream can't he?

He turned and headed back to his cabin it was way past curfew and if the harpies caught him well he didn't think it would be all that cool for the hero of Olympus to die because he was out late (well, OK, he wouldn't die he had Riptide after all).

As he reached his cabin he had a sudden weightless feeling and then a flash he heard shouting, he wondered who it was, it might have been him. The next thing he knew there was a gust of wind and he collided with the floor, if it weren't for the Achilles curse he would probably be a Percy pizza with extra olives on the side right now.

He groaned and raised himself up a little dazed.

"Percy you idiot, why didn't you get caught up in the wind! You could have died" someone shouted

"Thalia?" My eyes focused on her and the smirking boy next to her "Nico?" they if possible smirked even more and Thalia asked

"Well?"

"I'm sorry next time I'll make sure to land on a wind current because it is obvious I can hunt them down." I say my voice dripping sarcasm

"Good boy," She smirked until Nico nudged her and said

"Err, guys." We looked at him eyebrows raised not noticing our surroundings, he pointed, we looked,

"Oh"

**Zeus P.O.V**

After the flash 2 kids appeared and I created a wind to slow them down but then another flash and a 3rd kid appeared too low and going too fast for me to react fast enough so he slammed into the ground. I doubted he'd survived that fall but the others just looked at him and burst out laughing I saw that to be insensitive to the poor kid that had died, but they sobered up as he groaned. How did he survive that? The girl smirked and shouted, and in reply the boy said something seemingly dazed and then replied in a voice laden with sarcasm. Meanwhile the younger boy was staring at us a little nervously but not fear, they must be demigods. Well obviously they are, they are on Olympus after all, and no mere mortal can come here. Then the other two noticed us as well, all they said was,

"Oh"

"Who the Hades are you and how did you get here?" I thundered, they looked nervously at each over and the girl who looked an awful lot like my little Thalia said,

"What do you mean?" just as the older boy said confused,

"We don't know why or how we got here; did you not bring us here?"

"We did not bring you here and you should show us more respect boy." I snapped but my idiot brother, Poseidon had to but in didn't he?

"Oh please ignore air head here he's always like that," The older boy seemed to be holding back a laugh at that comment while the not-Thalia scowled "tell us your names and your part of the story if you please."

As the older boy was about to reply something landed heavily on his head causing him to stumble and the younger boy to burst out laughing and the not-Thalia to smirk. The boy bent down and picked up the box and said, "Of cause it lands on my head." Then studied the box and pulled a piece of paper from the box and said "it's assigned to us and the gods." He then looked at me and said "I can't read it would you mind?" he passed it to me and I started to read, it said,

_To the Gods and demigods, _

_I have brought you together to read (_"Where here to read!" Apollo moaned)_ some books on a demi god you all approve of (_The older boy snorted, while the other two looked rather doubtful) _although some rather grudgingly, I admit. The books are as follows 'Percy Jackson' (_Poseidon's and the older boys eyes widened here, I wonder why, oh well I'll find out later)_ 'and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, The Sea of Monsters, The Titans Curse, The Battle of the Labyrinth and The Last Olympian'. All in these Demigods past. And after 'The Heroes of Olympus: The Lost Hero, The Son of Neptune _(Poseidon frowned with me, his Neptune form didn't particularly have that many kids he never has and we all know Neptune defiantly has no children right now, hmmm.), _The Mark of Athena, The House of Hades and the Blood of Olympus'_ ('That sounds foreboding')_ All which are in the demigods' immediate future about a month away, their time. The demi gods shan't be able to return until all books are read._

_Enjoy,_

_The Fates, The Awesome Hermes, The Brilliant Apollo and Hera (who insists that we need family bonding time)_

_P.S when you find out their parents try not to kill them that would cause war trust me you wanted to kill one of them in the first book and that was bad enough, but if you kill them there __**will**__ be war, now, between the parents and in the future as they won't be able to help in 'The Heroes of Olympus' then were all dead._

_Good luck demi gods_

"Well that's comforting." The older boy stated causing the others to snort

"Well we'd better read then." Hera sighed "Especially if I said we should, you shouldn't ignore your mother." Hephaestus grumbled under his breath at this.

"Yes," I said "but first, Demigods, tell us your names." They looked at each other had a quick hushed argument the taller green eyed boy stepped forward and stated an a calm and controlled voice,

"Hi, my name is Percy Jackson," Poseidon twitched,

"I guess these books are about you then," Apollo laughed

The boy groaned and replied with "Don't reminded me, right as were in the past," he looked at the two others who nodded "and with what the letter said we've decided to let you figure out who our parents are" a pause "besides one of us will probably blurt it out." He stared pointedly at other boy, who shrugged and stepped forward,

"Err, I'm Nico Di Angelo" Hades head turned sharply to the boy and studied him stunned, hmmm, Both Hades and Poseidon are acting weird, well weirder than usual, "Son of-" he was cut off by the girl who looks like Thalia, who hit him over the head and said,

"Well that lasted long, didn't it!" voice dripping sarcasm, Nico blushed while Percy had one eye brow raised,

"Yeah a whole 30 seconds" Percy stated and started clapping sarcastically with the girl and Apollo who was clapping along and Hermes who wiped a tear from his eye and said,

"Great show, brilliant, molto-bene', tres-beian (French?) You. Are. A. Genius!"

The girl then stepped forward and proceeded to say, "I'm Thalia Grace" silence then…

"THE TREES ARE COMING TO LIFE!" Apollo screamed

"The trees are already alive, you idiot, ever heard of a dryad?" Artemus scolded

"Oh yeah." Apollo replied sheepishly while Hermes was laughing in his seat.

"Thalia?" I asked

"I guess this is just after the tree incident," she sighed "Yeah, it's me, dad."

"But…How…How are you not a tree?" she looked at Percy then back at me and said,

"Long story short, Percy found something that changed me back" Poseidon seemed to relax a bit looking at me, the tension was leaving his shoulders but I wasn't going to worry about that "Err, would you mind reading?" still stunned I started reading.

Ch. 2

**Sometimes I will be in someone's P.O.V like the last ch but most is going to be in no P.O.V**

**Poseidon P.O.V**

Once the three kids landed I took in their appearances all had black hair, the girl had striking blue eyes and an air around her that reminded me of Zeus, she was wearing clothes classic for Artemus' hunters and a tiara marking her as the luitenent. I wonder what happened to the last one, what was her name? Zoe'. Artemus will be heartbroken she loves that girl.

I then started to study the younger boy he had brown eyes and was wearing a black aviators jacket and black jeans and guess what he had black hair, I smirked he dresses like Hades.

I then moved my gaze to the older boy who fell. He was tall, around 16yrs of age; he was wearing the classic camp half-blood clothes and had a string of beads on a necklace. He had messy black hair that stuck up at the back; he was tanned and had smile lines that told me he laughed a lot. He reminded me of my 5yr old, Percy.

The boy who reminded me of Percy asked whether we had brought them here, a fair question really but of course my idiot of a brother had to take it the wrong way, so I tried to help the demigods relax by telling them to ignore the air head, causing the one who looks like Percy to hold back obvious amusement. I then proceeded to ask them their names the first one to answer was,

"Percy Jackson" I'm sure Zeus saw me twitch, he was my son. No doubt about it. My brothers are going to find out I brock the oath. If anyone kills my son I am starting war! They'd better listen to that letter, I'm serious, but luckily the demigods had decided to not tell us their parents, I relaxed a bit.

Next was Nico, then Thalia Grace, we all knew about her, the only surprise was that she is here. She then told us that it was Percy who brought her back, YES! There's little chance of Zeus killing Percy without warning now; I'd be able to stop him. I relaxed at that thought.

Zeus then started to read.

**I Accidentally Vaporize my Pre-Algebra Teacher**,

'Oh, this sounds perfectly safe' I think a little bitterly

"Err, how do you accidently vaporise someone?" Apollo asked

"Who cares?" Ares exclaimed expecting violence

**"Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood.**

"I know how you feel." Nico and Thalia say. All of us gods squirm uncomfortably, Percy seeing this added,

"You get cool powers though, that's an upside."

"Yeah awesome powers! Especially us three." Nico shouted, exited, causing us all to laugh.

"My powers are better, stronger and of a wider variety than yours" Percy adds happily, looking as smug as I felt

"Maybe but ours are just as cool." Nico put in seeing Thalia about to argue, Zeus wisely started to read. Me and Percy smiling smugly at our success.

**If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is:**

Thalia gasped, as dramatic as her father it seems, and screamed "Percy giving advice it's the end of the world!" causing Nico to burst out laughing and my son to scowl and role his eyes.

**close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life.**

"That won't work." Athena stated "It would only mean that they would be safe for a little while but then they'll be in even more trouble at an unexpected time which I'd say is worse."

I rolled my eyes and reminded her that "Nobody asked you" in a sweet voice making Percy snort in agreement and the other two to laugh in amusement

I got a glare and in return I grinned at her

**Being a half-blood is dangerous.**

"Check"

**It's scary.**

"Check"

**Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways.**

The demigods winced and I wondered who had died and why Percy had a look of heavy guilt on his face.

**If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think it's fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened.**

"Us too."

**But if you recognize yourself in these pages—if you feel something stirring inside—stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before **_**they **_**sense it too, and they'll come for you.**

**Don't say I didn't warn you.**

"You didn't warn me." Nico snickered Percy rolled his eyes and replied with

"By the time I found you, you were already with a monster and then with a Goddess. Or would you like me to tell everyone of how you reacted to it?" He grinned as Nico blushed

**My name is Percy Jackson.**

"Zeus stole my name" I smiled; my son has a sense of humour. The demigods snorted while Zeus grumbled about insolent demigods, I glared at him.

**I'm twelve years old. Until a **_**few **_**months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York.**

**No P.O.V**

**Am I a troubled kid?**

Instantly Nico and Thalia said "definitely" Percy and Poseidon glared at them as Hera snorted

**Yeah. You could say that.**

"See you agree with us" Nico laughed

**I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it, but things really started going bad last May, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan— twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus,**

"Man," Apollo sighed sympathetically "whoever took them must go through an awful lot of aspirin"

**heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff.**

"Sounds fascinating" Athena sighed dreamily, Poseidon snorted and stated,

"Sounds like torture" needless to say most of the entities in that room nodded in agreement, Athena huffed glaring daggers at everyone. Well, when I say everyone I mean Poseidon.

**I know—it sounds like torture.**

Percy and Poseidon smiled at the similarity as Athena huffed

**Most Yancy field trips were.**

**But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes.**

**Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee.**

"He reminds me of someone" Athena mumbled

Thalia leaned towards Percy and whispered low enough so only he and Nico could hear "Is that Chiron?" Percy nodded

**You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep.**

"WHAT! HOW COULD YOU SLEEP IN CLASS!" everyone jumped at the sudden out burst from, guess who? Athena. Percy just stared at her, apparently he was used to out bursts like this, and replied with,

"I don't, I just sort of zone out." Seeing Athena about to retort he continued "but I do listen, and Zeus before Athena bites my head off could you continue?" then "please?"

Seeing said thing about to happen Zeus hastily continued reading and no, it had nothing to do with Poseidon's glare so don't bring it up again.

**I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble.**

"Cause that's going to happen" Thalia snorted, Nico nodded,

"Yeah, because maybe your bad luck, which is worse than mine and Thalia's, combined, will suddenly turn good. It could happen, but just between you and me I think that would only happen when Apollo,"

Poseidon looked stony 'My son must have really bad look for it to be worse than a girl who was turned into a tree, what is going to happen? Was he the child of the prophecy? He hoped not, a heroes life is never a good one' he quickly made his face into an unreadable expression, like his realm, and Apollo hearing his name stopped trying to beat Hermes at rock, paper, scissors and looked towards them paying more attention to the conversation

"When Apollo acts all Emo and wears black while having smashed his lyre on one of his Holy Cows heads and had promised to never perform another haiku again"

Apollo looked horrified at this as Percy mumbled "it could happen"

**Boy, was I wrong.**

Poseidon groaned to himself but it came out a little too loud and his brothers heard him, but as Zeus has no idea who Nico was, only Thalia, unlike Hades, only the God of the Underworld had an idea of who Percy would be and understood the gesture, but he wasn't sure.

**"See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway.**

Silence, then everyone burst out laughing but none more loudly than Apollo who was trying to prove to himself that he could never be glum and dare he say it…Emo.

**And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim. **

Poseidon laughed the loudest this time

**And the time before that... Well, you get the idea.**

"Awww," Groaned Hermes "I want to know more"

**This trip, I was determined to be good.**

"Never gonna happen" smirked Nico, Percy just rolled his eyes

**All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl, hitting my best friend Grover**

"Isn't Grover the satyr we sent for Thalia?" Apollo frowned, Zeus glared at Dionysus who looked up from staring sadly at his diet coke as if wishing it to turn into his forbidden wine, 'only a century left now', sensing everyone looking at him he looked up and said

"Yeah"

**In the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich.**

"She eats that?" Aphrodite asked in a disgusted high pitched voice, frankly everyone agreed with her

**Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled.**

"Oh, I bet Grover would love that description" Thalia snickered with Nico

**He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.**

"Way to blow your cover goat boy" Thalia laughed

**Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened me with death **

Poseidon's eyes widened and he choked back a protest 'Percy's okay, he's here that human' he thought the word with disgust 'Hasn't hurt him, if he has though that man will never go near a body of water again, never unless he wants to drown'

**by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.**

**"I'm going to kill her," I mumbled.**

"Do it!" Ares chanted "Do it, Do it, Do it!"

**Grover tried to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter."**

"In his hair?" Aphrodite shivered "That will never, ever be in fashion!" causing a lot of eye rolling

**He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch.**

**"That's it." I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat.**

"Awww," moaned Ares he'd been looking forward to a fight, Poseidon looked towards him with narrowed eyes

**"You're already on probation," he reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."**

**Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there.**

"Why?" Apollo asked. Percy having good experiences with Apollo answered with,

"It would have been easier, though not necessarily better I might add. If I'd gotten Nancy then I wouldn't have been forced to go through a lot of bad experiences, but also I wouldn't have meet a lot of great friends" he glanced quickly to his dad who was studying him and added "or gods that haven't had at least one attempt on my life. In most ways my life is better. I also have a great brother now thanks to my brilliant dad and two annoying cousins" he finished happily

"Aww!" Thalia cooed, "You know you love us"

Poseidon frowned, this future Percy wasn't old enough compared to young Percy for a brother to not be born yet, which means Percy's brother is currently alive. 'But I have no other Demi god children, unless… A Cyclops, I guided one of his brother Cyclops's to him, no wonder he looked at me to say that.'

Nico snorted "Please this is the longest you've ever gone without ticking of a god, Zeus is a great example you fell from the roof and the first thing you say to a god ticks them off typical."

Percy just smiled sheepishly

**In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.**

'Oh no' Poseidon thought

"There better be a fight, so far this book is like every other book, disappointing!" Ares moaned, earning glares of both Athena and Poseidon

**Mr. Brunner led the museum tour.**

"Isn't Mr. Brunner Chiron's field name?" Artemus asked

"I believe it is," Athena frowned "but doesn't he only use that name when he is keeping an eye on a really powerful demigod"

Poseidon froze; they were going to find out. Luckily for him Zeus continued

**He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery.**

**It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.**

"Longer than that Splashy" Nico said, Percy quirked an eye brow and asked,

"Splashy?" while Thalia was laughing in her seat

"Yeah it goes with your" he stopped looking at Poseidon's warning stare and continued with, "your interests you know, you like the canoe lake and you go to the beach with your friends a lot you know?" he finished in a high voice, causing Percy to snort and retort with,

"What does that make you and Thalia then? Moody and Sparky?" Poseidon was holding in his laughter having gotten over the Splashy comment and seeing good names for Zeus and Hades. While Hades looked torn between looking angry at the comment on his son and amused on the comment on Zeus and Zeus just looked down right murderous but at Athena's insistence he continued with the book.

**He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a **_**Stele, **_**for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye.**

"Wait, Percy didn't you call my _Lawyer _Mrs. Dodds, you know the one who picked us up the last time we visited _dad_ and you were locked in an _air tight_ room for a few hours?" Nico asked as Hades frowned and Percy nodded, Poseidon meanwhile was glaring at Hades having come to the conclusion of him being Nico's dad, there were too many similarities.

**Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker. She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.**

Nico nodded and said "I can sympathise man, she's capable of being vicious, and you don't even want to know what she did to that man in Colorado." He shivered

**From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was devil spawn. She would point her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month.**

"We feel for you" Hermes and Apollo said sympathetically

"A month! Is that not overdoing it?" Hestia asked, Dionysus just shrugged not caring

**One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me, real serious, and said, "You're absolutely right."**

"Oh Joy!" Poseidon mumbled sarcastically

**Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art.**

**Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, "Will you **_**shut up**_**?"**

Hermes whispered to Apollo "5 Drachmas he gets caught saying that."

"Deal" Apollo answered

**It came out louder than I meant it to. **

"Ha!" Smirked Hermes holding his hand out, "Hand it over" groaning Apollo forked over the cash

**The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story.**

**"Mr. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"**

**My face was totally red. I said, "No, sir."**

**Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?**

**I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"**

All the Gods who had that lovely experienced groaned and Demeter said "Of course it's that one"

**"Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied.**

"Oh, don't make him go into more detail!" Groaned Hera

**"And he **_**did **_**this because..."**

"He had a strange eating habit" Apollo stated

"He was crazy" Hermes added

"Shut up, we all know it was because he didn't eat any cereal" Demeter stated as Hades groaned

"As riveting and pointless this conversation is, could we move on and besides all of us who were there, excluding you Demeter, feel it is a good thing he didn't eat cereal, it was disgusting enough in there without the added affects." Poseidon stated Hades nodding along while Percy and Nico shuddered thinking that their parents had been inside a stomach for any period of time was enough to creep someone out.

**"Well..." I racked my brain to remember. "Kronos was the king god,**

"GOD!" Zeus roared

Poseidon tried to calm him down by saying "Peace brother, I'm sure the teacher will correct him and he probably knows it now if not then."

Percy said "Trust me I definitely know it now"

'I don't like the sound of that' thought Poseidon

**and—"**

**"God?" Mr. Brunner asked.**

"See?" Poseidon said calmly

**"Titan," I corrected myself. "And ... he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead.**

"How can you confuse a baby with a rock?" Thalia asked

"Well I have a few ideas," Percy said mischievously a smile threatening to appear on his face, the gods and goddesses paid close attention as Thalia was quickly regretting asking as from the looks on Percy and Nico's faces were just shouting non-daughter of Zeus friendly, "Kronos was an idiot and had no taste buds."

"He ate the Gods whole." Nico added

"Or most likely, baby Zeus looked like a rock." They finished together they glanced at Zeus' angry face "Yep most defiantly the last one" Poseidon and Hades were laughing so much they almost fell of their thrones, Thalia lost her temper before Zeus and zapped the sons of the sea and underworld gods with high voltage lightning head first into the far wall, were they lay sprawled, groaning but still laughing as they shouted back "Still worth it!" the twos fathers winked at them and said together,

"Mind if we use that?" still fuming Zeus continued reading

**And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters—"**

"Nice wording," grimaced Poseidon looking at his son

"Sorry" he replied sympathetically

**"Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me.**

"Yeah, try being there" Hades said in a voice that said 'I've just eaten a sour lemon don't talk to me' as Zeus smirked

**"—and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," I continued, "and the gods won."**

Hermes looked at Percy in awe and said "You summarised a fully blown war with the titans _and_ giants with lots of rock throwing and destruction into a 'big fight between the gods and Titans and the gods won'?" Percy nodded sheepishly "I respect you man, shame you're not my kid I would have loved to have you in my cabin!" Hermes exclaimed

**Some snickers from the group, **

"Why, he got it right didn't he?" Apollo asked confused

**Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"**

"Well you never know, Percy almost had to answer it but instead he answered 'why does Kronos want to take over?' just goes to show you never know what's going to happen." Nico said causing the gods to worry about the future and Thalia and Percy to glare at Nico whose hair stood on end.

**"And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"**

"Busted!" Hermes, Nico, and Apollo shouted

**"Busted," Grover muttered.**

**"Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair.**

**At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.**

"If he is Chiron he has horse ears." Athena corrected

"Actually," Percy objected, causing everyone to startle and Poseidon to lean forward in anticipation, "he has human ears with horse hearing." Athena's facial expression quickly became furious as Poseidon was laughing, rolling about in his seat,

"Good one!" Poseidon managed 'Ha! My son has shown up both Athena and Zeus in the first chapter alone, I see what they meant with the angering the gods instantly argument earlier!"

**I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."**

**"I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other **

**five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"**

"Err, how is that a happy note?" Apollo asked, surprisingly it was Dionysus who answered by pulling his nose out of a 'scratch and sniff' wine magazine (courtesy of Zeus) and saying,

"Chiron is terrible at changing the subject, if he can't be bothered to even attempt a miserable chance he just sticks with, 'on that happy note'" and went back to his magazine "ooh there's a red wine sale at ROFL (isis' store in SoN)"

**The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses.**

"Since when aren't they?" Artemus snorted

**Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson."**

**I knew that was coming.**

**I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?"**

**Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go—**

"Yeah I hate it when he does that" Nico whined as Thalia said,

"Hate that look"

**intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything.**

Thalia inputted "Older than 1000 and no-where near everything" then deciding it was incomplete, "idiot" Percy frowned as Artemus nodded in approval

**"You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told me.**

**"About the Titans?"**

**"About real life. And how your studies apply to it."**

"Percy," Thalia sighed, "I don't know how to break this to you but… You're a demi god" she finished with a sombre expression

"Oh go talk to your tree, pinecone face" snapped Percy, Nico seeing her eyes flash said in a warning that he hoped Percy would understand to stop talking,

"Percy, take a long walk of a short pier"

"Gladly, you never know who you can talk to on piers, Nereus, chatty fish that love to spread rumours and possibly naiads." He continued picking a thread on his jeans "honestly the amount of rumours in the ocean, I'd hate it if a certain daughter of Zeus was in one of them."

"You wouldn't!" Thalia asked in a harsh low voice,

"Wouldn't i?" he responded, Thalia turned to Zeus with pleading eyes while Poseidon winked at Percy with a smirk on his lips

**"Oh."**

"Nice smart answer Perseus" Nico snorted with Athena as Percy glared at the use of his full name

**"What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson."**

**I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard.**

"If he didn't you'd most likely be dead right now." Athena said exasperated 'is this boy really as stupid as he makes himself out to be? But then again if I'm right he _is_ Barnacle Beards son'

**I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: "What ho!'" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever **_**lived,**_** and their mother, and what god they worshiped.**

**But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C— in my life. No—he didn't expect me to be **_**as good **_**he expected me to be **_**better. **_**And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly.**

"Demigods have it hard, I couldn't imagine not being able to read my wine magazines" Dionysus said then noticing everyone staring at him, coughed and said "Not that I care about those ungrateful little brats"

"Aww, does Mr-i-hate-demigod-camp care?" Apollo crooned

"I didn't know he could be nice" Nico stated

"I do not care and I can be nice if I felt like it!" Dionysus exclaimed

"He's right," Percy said shocking everyone,

"What?" Thalia asked startled

"He can be nice _and _he does care"

"I DON'T!"

"You do and I've got proof, in our time that is" Then counting down his fingers, "Ariadne, he looked after her and later married her after Theseus _'Dumped her'_,"

"Mr D's married?" Nico asked astonished

"I know hard to believe (Hey!), then with us he got rid of Tantalus as camp director and brought Chiron back as soon as we got evidence Chiron was innocent, he didn't kill me when he caught me sneaking out of camp to help look for Annabeth and Artemus with you, Bianca and Zoe', Thalia, then when I asked him he stopped looking for pizza and made a whole street of people and a Manticore temporarily insane, so we could get to the Hespraides, he later helped Chris after the labyrinth when he went insane, and then during the" He cut of and glanced at the gods, "thing that occurred two months ago he gave me information about gods and demigods during 'Party Mode'." Silence then

"Oh Bravo, Bravo excellent speech, well said" Apollo and Hermes cheered wiping tears from their eyes, Percy blushed and said,

"Err would you mind reading?"

**I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral.**

"Probably was" Athena stated

**He told me to go outside and eat my lunch.**

**The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.**

**Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city.**

"Maybe dear old Zeus is throwing a tantrum?" Poseidon stated innocently

**I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York State had been weird since Christmas.**

"The winter solocitis?" asked Nico, everyone nodded

**We'd had massive snowstorms, flooding, and wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.**

"Maybe it's you Seaweed who's throwing the tantrum" Zeus retorted "Hurricanes are your thing after all" Poseidon rolled his eyes

"It said lightning strikes and flooding, if any-thing it's both of you." Hades pointed out

**Nobody else seemed to notice.**

"If it is you two then it will be covered by the mist." Athena said pompously to some eye rolling

**Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers.**

"Boys!" Artemus snorted

**Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing.**

**Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from **_**that **_**school—the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere.**

"Nice to see you think so highly of your-self Perce." Thalia mumbled

**"Detention?" Grover asked.**

**"Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean—I'm not a genius."**

"That much is obvious" Athena put in causing Nico and Thalia to erupt into laughter,

"Nice to see I have such supporting cousins" Percy snorted rolling his eyes

**Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, **

"I doubt it." Thalia snorted, "Grover isn't known for his deep comments,"

**he said, "Can I have your apple?"**

Over the laughter Thalia shouted "I told you so"

**I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it.**

**I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home.**

"Mamma's boy!" Ares screeched

"And so he should be, you should all take a leaf out of this boys book and respect you mother" Hera stated as everybody groaned

**She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me.**

"Awww" the goddesses cooed and Poseidon nodded in understanding as the other gods snickered

**Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized cafe table.**

"I see he travels in style" Apollo snorted as Hephaestus nodded in approval

**I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends—I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists—and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.**

"I don't like her," Thalia stated, "If I ever meet her…" she left her threat hanging as Nico nodded before looking at Percy and saying,

"How did you put up with her?"

**"Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos.**

Apollo wolf whistled as Hermes sighed, "Wow!" in a dreamy voice before snickering

**I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears.**

'oh no' Poseidon frowned understanding he was about to be found out, he glanced at Percy and saw him shrinking back with a cautious and attempting an innocent look, also knowing what was about to happen.

"A Wave." Zeus stated, glaring suspiciously at Poseidon. Meanwhile Hades had had his suspicions confirmed or at least he had evidence towards it, he wasn't going to voice them, though Poseidon is his favourite brother after all, he didn't try to kill the Di Angelo's, unlike Zeus.

**I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Percy pushed me!"**

**Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.**

**Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see—"**

**"—the water—"**

Zeus' eyes narrowed

**"—like it grabbed her—"**

"POSEIDON!" Zeus bellowed, "YOU BROKE THE OATH!"

"AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO HAS KEPT THE STUPID OATH? THAT MIGHT I ADD, YOU TWO FORCED ME INTO?" Hades shouted

"Why do you automatically assume it was me? Triton could be the father or he could be a child of Oceanus." Poseidon pointed out. Zeus calmed down enough to ask,

"Are you the father?"

"Yes, but my point still stands." Poseidon admitted, Zeus' eyes flashed,

"THE BOY SHALL…" Zeus was interrupted by Poseidon, who said,

"NOT BE HARMED!" He exclaimed, "If either of you two harm him, you will have to deal with me! Zeus, if my son is harmed, so help me or you and Hades will be spending quality time with father!" he looked around at the other gods, "The same goes for you, now Zeus continue"

"I don't have to do what…" Zeus muttered

"NOW!" The god of the Seas exclaimed

**I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again.**

**As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. **

"Probably was" Dionysus drawled turning a page in his magazine

**"Now, honey—"**

**"I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks."**

"NO! Never guess you punishment!" Hermes shouted "It will only get worse."

**That wasn't the right thing to say.**

"Never is" Hermes said shaking his head sadly

**"Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.**

**"Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me. **_**I **_**pushed her."**

**I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death.**

"With good reason" Nico sighed

**She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.**

**"I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.**

**"But—"**

**"You—**_**will**_—**stay—here."**

**Grover looked at me desperately.**

**"It's okay, man," I told him. "Thanks for trying."**

"She has to be a monster." Aphrodite said, "I mean not only does she look monstrous but she sounds monstrous"

**"Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "**_**Now**_**."**

**Nancy Bobofit smirked.**

**I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare.**

"Every warrior needs one." Ares nodded in approval

**Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.**

**How'd she get there so fast?**

"She's in a hurry to kill you, but if she's who I think she is she may just be there to retrieve you." Hades said

"Retrieve? Take him where?" Poseidon asked, "Who do you think she is?"

Hades squirmed in his seat and said "I think she's Alectro, I don't know why I sent her if she is."

Poseidon glared at him but motioned to keep reading, 'My son is okay, he's here, and he's going to make it.'

**I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.**

"Use your senses boy!" Athena scolded

"I am! And any way this was years ago, I was twelve and I didn't at the time know I was a demigod so really it can't be helped if I don't understand things a demigod would." Percy retorted as Thalia snorted and said,

"Yeah keep telling yourself that." And Nico asked innocently,

"So what's your excuse now?" Percy just rolled his eyes as some of the gods *ehem* Apollo, Hermes, Dionysus and Ares rolled about in their seats.

**I wasn't so sure.**

"See?"

**I went after Mrs. Dodds.**

Poseidon groaned and he saw his son scowl.

**Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel.**

"Because my son is less important than a book" Poseidon stated sarcastically

"Exactly" Zeus mumbled under his breath

**I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall.**

**Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop.**

"Exactly, Alectro always does that, 'cause she's a real sweetie." Nico said voice dripping sarcasm earning some weird looks

**But apparently that wasn't the plan.**

**I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section.**

**Except for us, the gallery was empty.**

'This just gets better and better' thought Poseidon bitterly

**Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.**

"She is Kelp for Brains! She's not gonna be purring is she?" Thalia sighed heavily, "How much of a seaweed brain can you get!"

**Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it...**

"Or you" Dionysus smiled, 'one less brat for me!'

**"You've been giving us problems, honey," she said.**

"Ah so she started saying Honey because of this job, you know it's annoying as Hades as well" Nico groaned

"She's not saying Honey now." Hades sighed 'joy another thing to put up with'

Zeus frowned Nico and Hades are acting disturbingly calm around each other…Hmm, my daughter is Thalia, My dimwit brother Ol' Barnacle beard's son is Percy could Nico be…Nah. He was furious when I broke the oath unlike Poseidon who seemed actually just mildly annoyed but he's always been able to hide his feelings sort of obvious why though he broke it too. So Hades, nah, Nico isn't his son, can't be.

**I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am."**

"Since when do you do the safe thing?" Thalia stated awe struck

"Yeah, you don't even do the safe thing for the gods, gets you in a lot of trouble too." Nico chuckled when Percy just grinned at that.

**She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"**

Most of the gods sat up straighter and Hades asked "Get away with what?"

Nico and Thalia looked confusedly at Percy who said in a weak voice, "I don't want to ruin the surprise." When everyone kept looking at him he sighed and said, "Something was stolen from _both _Zeus and Hades and Poseidon was blamed for no reason other than the fact that several thousand years ago Hera decided to catch Zeus in a net," Poseidon chuckled at that but rolled his eyes all the same but when he caught Zeus glaring at him he raised an eyebrow and said,

"Oh come on you seriously don't think I did it he basically just said none of us stole anything but where blaming each other in the future anyway." Seeing he wasn't convincing him he sighed and said "Just read and we'll find out sooner or later."

**The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.**

**She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me.**

**I said, "I'll—I'll try harder, ma'am."**

**Thunder shook the building.**

Percy coughed and sang "Dramatic!" hoping to diffuse some tension it worked, for his dad, Apollo and Hermes anyway

**"We are not fools, Percy Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."**

**I didn't know what she was talking about.**

**All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room.**

"Hermes' eyes widened and he exclaimed "Uncle P I love your son!"

**Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on **_**Tom Sawyer **_**from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade.**

Athena swelled in anger and shouted "And rightfully so!" and Poseidon shrugged and rolled his eyes

**Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.**

Athena shouted "How dare he" Poseidon came to his sons rescue before she could start ranting and said,

"Athena 1, not everyone loves books as much as you, 2, they're demi gods, and demigods can barely read a sentence without feeling sick from the dyslexia and getting a migraine and 3, they can't sit still long enough to read. So really it's understandable they hate reading so, Shut up!"

Athena just scowled and said, "I'm amazed you can show some intelligence from that waterlogged mind of yours!"

"I may be laid back but I can be serious. And you Athena need to learn to have fun sometimes Zeus read

**"Well?" she demanded.**

**"Ma'am, I don't..."**

**"Your time is up," she hissed.**

**Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shrivelled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.**

**Then things got even stranger. **

"How can things get stranger?" asked Apollo

**Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.**

"How's that strange?" Nico asked Percy rolled his and said,

"I didn't always have that pen you know it may not be weird now but it was then."

**"What ho, Percy!" **

"What ho?" Apollo asked amused

**he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air.**

"How is a pen meant to help?" Asked Hermes

**Mrs. Dodds lunged at me.**

**With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword—Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.**

"Oh" Hermes stated sheepishly

**Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes.**

"Oh Please she always looks at you like that." Nico Snorted, Poseidon's eyes widened and Hades leant forward and asked,

"He meets her often then?"

"Oh yeah," Nico said as a matter of fact, "So far it's an almost yearly occurrence, no big-gy" Poseidon glared towards his brother as he shifted awkwardly.

"Just give away the story Moody." Thalia scowled as Percy snickered with Hermes and Apollo

**My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword.**

"Almost? I did and it wasn't even a monster." Nico mumbled, Percy and Thalia raised an eyebrow and Thalia said,

"What was it?" Nico blushed and muttered,

"The Stoll's" everyone looked at the demigods weirdly as the son and daughter of the sea and sky burst out laughing and rolling about on the floor as Nico blushed even more and kicked Percy in the stomach causing him to stop laughing for all of 1 second before laughing all the more.

"The…" Gasp "Sto..oo..lls?" Gasp "Seriously?" Thalia managed clutching her side as they calmed Nico just glared his hand twitching towards his sword, Percy gained control of his breathing and said

"We won't tell anyone Nico don't worry."

Nico muttered "it's not you I'm bothered about."

**She snarled, "Die, honey!"**

"HONEY!" Apollo screamed at the top of his godly lungs

**And she flew straight at me.**

**Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.**

"How is that natural?" Aphrodite asked, no one answered

**The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water. **

"Aww is ickle Percy already connecting himself with daddy?" Apollo crooned; guess who got drenched in sub-zero water.

_**Hisss!**_

**Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan.**

"Is this whole thing going to relate to sea brain because that will just ruin it." Athena groaned

"Aww, you're just sad it's not relating to you." Poseidon threw back at her with a smug smile

"I thought she was a kindly one" Nico said blankly

**She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.**

The demigods shivered while the gods looked sympathetically at them

**I was alone.**

**There was a ballpoint pen in my hand.**

**Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me.**

"You don't think he used the mist on you do you?" Nico asked "I mean you might have freaked out a lot so to calm you down and buy more time Chiron and Grover used the mist on you to try and make you think it hadn't, you know, happened?" Percy just shrugged and answered with,

"You'll have to ask him."

**My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something.**

"You have experience in that?" Thalia asked

**Had I imagined the whole thing?**

"No, that's what they want you to think." Said Nico mysteriously

**I went back outside.**

**It had started to rain.**

"Stop thinking in small sentences!" Hermes shouted

**Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."**

"Who?" Apollo, Nico and Thalia asked

"The mist will have had to have given them a new teacher in replace of the one Splashy vaporised." Said Hermes who had a lot of experience with the mist (Last Olympian)

**I said, "Who?"**

**"Our **_**teacher.**_ **Duh!"**

**I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about.**

**She just rolled her eyes and turned away.**

"That was surprisingly nice." Thalia said

**I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.**

**He said, "Who?"**

"Yes Percy get it out of him, he can't lie" Nico shouted

"Should really teach them to for situations like this." Dionysus mumbled thoughtfully

**But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.**

"See" Nico said proudly as Percy rolled his eyes good naturedly

**"Not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious."**

**Thunder boomed overhead.**

**I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved.**

**I went over to him.**

**He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson."**

**I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.**

**"Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"**

**He stared at me blankly. "Who?"**

**"The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher."**

**He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"**

"Now Chiron can lie!" Apollo exclaimed as Hermes wiped his eye and said in a teary voice,

"I am so proud; Chiron is all grown up, lying to children and messing with people's minds just like a real grown up should."


	2. Blue Socks of death

Percy Jackson reading ch 2 of book

**Hades P.O.V**

'How did my son get out of the hotel? Zeus is going to explode when he finds out.' This was all going through my head while Zeus was reading, I was panicking trying to delay the inevitable 'he'll find out sooner or later should I tell him or should I let him figure it out for himself?' when Percy was found out to be Poseidon's son I was angry 'they forced me into an oath and they themselves turn out to be the ones to break it! But as I need Poseidon on my side when Nico is found out I'll limit the monsters I send after him, I don't need him dead after all, I don't want to spend more time than necessary with the boy.'

Athena volunteered to read next.

**Three Old Ladies Knit the Socks of Death**

'This sounds interesting. Socks of Death. Death big D as in Thantos or death little D?' Hades thought. Poseidon shifted slightly on his throne as his lips tightened into a grim line as Thalia and Nico's eyebrows rose.

**I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly.**

"Yeah I hate those weird experiences, they never make sense until long after they've happened and even then they're still weird." Thalia muttered

**This twenty-four/seven hallucination was more than I could handle. **

"That must've been rough." Nico stated worried from the title still

**For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on me. The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr—a perky blond woman whom I'd never seen in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip—had been our pre-algebra teacher since Christmas.**

Thalia had an evil glint in her eye as she heard this and Nico shifted slightly away from her in his seat.

**Every so often I would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was psycho.**

**No P.O.V.**

"Oh that's because you are psycho Percy" Thalia snickered,

"Yeah there's no such thing as a demi god, this is all what your fevered and delusional mind has cooked up." Nico added to the sound of Apollo and Hermes snickering

"Oh, so you don't really look like Charybdis*1 and Geryon*2 then, thank goodness, so I'm not related to a couple monsters." Apollo and Hermes were all out laughing now.

*1 (giant monster in need of a dentist in Sea of Monsters) *2 (the guy in the Battle of the Labyrinth with three bodies and hearts with Apollo's Holy cows)

"Err, what about Arion*3 and Tyson*4 and all your other monster relatives?" Nico inserted carefully

*3(Horse in Son of Neptune he calls Frank Baby man and swears a lot) *4 (C'mon, if you don't know who Tyson is why are you reading this and not the books! )

"I meant ugly monsters." Percy pouted

Thalia raised an eyebrow and said, "What about-"

"Shut up" Percy whined good naturedly

**It got so I almost believed them—Mrs. Dodds had never existed.**

"I wish!" Nico muttered

"I thought Alectro couldn't do anything to you because of your dad?" Percy whispered causing Nico to snort

"Doesn't stop her from grounding me and giving me homework and just creeping me out by sitting up in a tree or shelf and just staring. Do you know how creepy that is?"

**Almost.**

"Grover." Thalia stated

**But Grover couldn't fool me.**

"Ha, told you, can't lie to save his life." Thalia laughed

**When I mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would hesitate, and then claim she didn't exist. But I knew he was lying.**

**Something was going on. Something **_**had **_**happened at the museum.**

"No shit Sherlock" Thalia snorted

**I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs. Dodds with talons and leathery wings would wake me up in a cold sweat.**

The three demigods shivered remembering similar dreams while some of the gods looks curios, they wanted to know what their kids dreamed of, well besides themselves but that was on purpose, they were made to see that by them.

**The freak weather continued, which didn't help my mood. One night, a thunder storm blew out the windows** **in my dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy.**

Everyone glanced towards Zeus who glowered at them

**One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.**

Everyone glanced towards Poseidon who noticed their glances and grinned cheerfully

**I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. **

"Makes sense, he'd be picking up his father's mood from the weather and he'd be sensing a bit of Zeus' mood as well, considering him not being aloud in the air he'd be sensing the danger." Athena said seriously

**My grades slipped from D's to F's.**

Athena shook her head in disgust

**I got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends. I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class.**

Ares clapped and crowed in delight

**Finally, when our English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazy to study for spelling tests, I snapped. I called him an old sot. I wasn't even sure what it meant, but it sounded good.**

Hermes and Apollo snickered and glanced at Dionysus

**The headmaster sent my mom a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy.**

"Well," Apollo huffed crossing his arms, fighting a smile

**Fine, I told myself. Just fine.**

**I was homesick.**

"Momma's boy!" Ares snickered causing Percy to blush and Hera to glare harshly at her son.

**I wanted to be with my mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to public school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties.**

Poseidon narrowed his eyes in a glare as his jaw tightened angrily

**And yet...there were things I'd miss at Yancy. The view** **of the woods out side my dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance, the smell of pine trees. I would miss Grover,**

"Awww" Thalia crooned snickering with Nico

**a good friend,** **even if he was a little strange.**

Hermes and Apollo snorted out of their earlier momentary silence and laughed with Thalia as Nico gasped,

"I wo…wonder how…w Grov..ver would react to… to that?" between laughs

**I worried how he'd survive next year without me.**

"He would get up in the morning and go to class, make a new friend and repeat." Nico said slowly with wide eyes, Thalia slapped him over the head and said,

"No you idiot, he'd have gone to camp." Wide eyed and looking confused Nico asked,

"What camp?" everyone just stared at him until, "what?" Nico looked around, "is there something on my face?" Squirming in his seat he patted his face before shrinking back and snapping "quit it! Read! Leer! Leggere! διαβάσετε στην αρχαία (pronounced as - diavásete sti̱n archaía), Dad please!" seeing his son squirm Hades read on.

**I'd miss Latin class, too—Mr. Brunner's crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do well.**

"I sorta' miss those days before all this." Percy whispered sadly as Nico scowled at his hands as Thalia nodded and said,

"Me too, some of it anyway" thinking of Jason, her brother

**As exam week got closer, Latin was the only test I studied for.**

**I hadn't forgotten what Mr. Brunner had told me about this subject being life-and-death for me. I wasn't sure why, but I'd started to believe him.**

"Good" Poseidon murmured fingering his Trident

**The evening before my final, I got so frustrated I threw the **_**Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology **_**across my dorm room. **

Poseidon, Percy, Nico, Thalia and some of the other gods laughed as Athena turned bright red and her nostrils flared

**Words had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one-eighties as if they were riding skateboards. **

"I like skateboards" Apollo nodded to his thought, "they've chosen a most noble mode of transport."

Hermes frowned took out his phone murmuring "Skateboards, 1-80's, hmm, I wonder" he then proceeded to go cross eyed, frown and move his phone as far away as possible squinting at it before pulling his arm back and slamming the phone of the wall and declaring "I have a whole new respect for the Athena cabin, how can they read so much? It hurts to look at words when you're a demigod, I just tried." He paused contemplating, "maybe they like crave knowledge so much they'd go through the torture of reading to find out, I know I wouldn't."

**There was no way I was going to remember the difference between Chiron and Charon,**

Percy grinned "I do now!"

"Me too" Nico high fived Percy as Thalia grumbled

"I can spell things"

**or Polydictes and Polydeuces. And conjugating those Latin verbs? Forget it.**

**I paced the room, feeling like ants were crawling around inside my shirt.**

**I remembered Mr. Brunner's serious expression, his thousand-year-old eyes. **_**I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson.**_

"He certainly got it." Thalia agreed nodding

**I took a deep breath. I picked up the mythology book.**

"You always have to prepare yourself to pick up a book." Nico solemnly agreed

**I'd never asked a teacher for help before. **

"And it certainly shows" Athena huffed

"**Maybe if I talked to , he could give me some pointers. At least I could apologize for the big fat F I was about to score on his exam.**

"How did you know you were going to get an 'F'? did you see the future?" Apollo eagerly asked

"And why was it a big fat 'F'? why not a small skinny 'F'?" Hermes curiously asked

**I didn't want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking I hadn't tried.**

"Hadn't tried what? To escape?" Hermes asked seriously, "I can help, I can give you escape plans for almost anything, of course it's an escape plan were you'd have to think like one of my kids. Pre-planned and sadly not always Athena proof or to be made up on the fly."

"They could come in handy." Nico and Percy agreed

**I walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr. Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor.**

**I was three steps from the door handle when I heard voices inside the office. Mr. Brunner asked a question. A voice that was definitely Grover's said,**

_**"...**_ **worried about Percy, sir."**

**I froze.**

**I'm not usually an eavesdropper,**

"Really?" Nico said sceptically, clearly not believing Percy's innocent expression

**but I dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friend talking about you to an adult.**

"Your' right, it's physically impossible to do that. I hear Zeus and Hera talking about me and Apollo all the time." Hermes agreed

"Wait what did they say? When was this? Why didn't you tell me?" Apollo demanded, wide eyed as Zeus winced and shifted his gaze to the side before catching Poseidon grinning mischievously at him and glaring at him before scowling at the floor as Hera glared at the two boys

**I inched closer.**

**"... alone this summer," Grover was saying. "I mean, a Kindly One in the **_**school**_**! Now that we know for sure, and **_**they **_**know too—"**

"That's bad." Poseidon muttered, the hand on his hand twitched in a barely controlled urge to protect his youngest son causing sparks of green power flitter across the prongs of his Trident

**"We would only make matters worse by rushing him," Mr. Brunner said. "We need the boy to mature more."**

"Maybe, but he should be safe and be a happy child as much as possible at camp" Poseidon mumbled under his breath

**"But he may not have time. The summer solstice dead line— **_**"**_

"What, why is there a deadline?" Apollo asked, "Aren't they only for when an Olympian is angry or wants a quest? But I don't think we know who Percy is yet so why are they already talking of deadlines?" everyone blinked at him, surprised.

"Probably a fight, likely major. Unless some of your demigod punks stop it." Ares said as he was cleaning his nails with a knife, as everyone looked at him either glaring or scowling at him for disrespecting their kids, "Better not, haven't had a good war for a while."

**"Will have to be resolved without him, Grover. Let him enjoy his ignorance while he still can."**

Nico snickered as Thalia smirked and said "that gonna' take a while." As Percy rolled his eyes at them

**"Sir, he **_**saw **_**her... ."**

**"His imagination," Mr. Brunner insisted. "The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince him of that."**

**"Sir, I ... I can't fail in my duties again." **

"Yes not again, I doubt he'd have a say in his career, I'll find him a nice sausage factory to work in" Zeus grouched, bitter as Thalia muttered about 'lecturing the goat boy again'

**Grover's voice was choked with emotion. "You know what that would mean."**

**"You haven't failed, Grover," Mr. Brunner said kindly. "I should have seen her for what she was. Now let's just worry about keeping Percy alive until next fall—"**

**The mythology book dropped out of my hand and hit the floor with a thud.**

"No! Don't give away your position!" Hermes howled, "No, it's okay, we can fix this, just pick up the book, we don't want you to leave some incriminating evidence behind, now back away. Go into an-other classroom and stay as still as possible"

**Mr. Brunner went silent.**

**My heart hammering, I picked up the book and backed down the hall.**

"Good boy, get rid of the evidence" Hermes crooned quietly, oblivious to the others watching him amusedly

**A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Brunner's office door, the shadow of something much taller than my wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that looked suspiciously like an archer's bow.**

"Why has Mr. Brunner got a bow?" Athena wondered

**I opened the nearest door and slipped inside.**

**A few seconds later I heard a slow **_**clop-clop-clop,**_**like muffled wood blocks, then a sound like an animal snuffling right outside my door. A large, dark shape paused in front of the glass, and then moved on.**

'Why is Chiron in his true form?' Athena thought 'But Grover is a satyr, it was probably just him, after all I doubt Chiron to be that reckless.'

**A bead of sweat trickled down my neck.**

**Somewhere in the hallway, Mr. Brunner spoke. "Nothing," he murmured. "My nerves haven't been right since the winter solstice."**

"So my dear baby brothers sparky toy was stolen, on a day that all of us were gathered, me, Hades, Hermes, Ares," Poseidon cut himself off, sighed and shook his head before continuing with, "everyone, and he still decides to blame me, do you really think of me as someone who would go around stealing others property. I believe you've got me confused with my nephew over there." He finished, nodding towards Hermes, who was busy stealing Apollo's arrows, who was up until then watching his Uncles and Father, and just like everyone else listening (it actually was everyone but Hermes actually) in on the conversation looked at Hermes as Poseidon indicated, to find him filching his weapons.

Hermes noticing everyone staring at him switched his expression to one of interest and started studying the arrow before asking innocently what the feathered end of the arrow was called, to which Apollo eagerly answered seeming to be one of the few (they knew Hermes too well by now, just as Percy, Thalia and Nico knew the Stoll's so well) who believed that he was just curious ((in other words just Ares, who was sceptical, and Aphrodite, who believed him whole heartedly) to be honest Apollo probably knew this but just played along, after all he is his best friend and brother)

Zeus conceding the point just smiled sheepishly as Hades muttered that, "Poseidon and his kids can rarely, if ever get away with thievery" 'but they can get away with hiding it' he thought think about how well they could keep to a story, no matter how bad they were at thinking of one, and about how well they could usually hide things. He thought.

**"Mine neither," Grover said. "But I could have sworn ..."**

**"Go back to the dorm," Mr. Brunner told him. "You've got a long day of exams tomorrow."**

**"Don't remind me."**

"Poor Goat boy." Thalia said

**The lights went out in Mr. Brunner's office.**

**I waited in the dark for what seemed like forever.**

**Finally, I slipped out into the hallway and made my way back up to the dorm.**

"Good, no-one saw you" Hermes approved

**Grover was lying on his bed, studying his Latin exam notes like he'd been there all night.**

**"Hey," he said, bleary-eyed. "You going to be ready for this test?"**

**I didn't answer.**

**"You look awful." He frowned. "Is everything okay?"**

**"Just... tired."**

**I turned so he couldn't read my expression,**

"Not going to work, they can sense emotions" Dionysus inserted in a bored voice seemingly half asleep.

**and started getting ready for bed.**

**I didn't understand what I'd heard downstairs.**

"Poor Percy, you never understand," Thalia said with tears in her eyes as she put a comforting hand on his shoulder, causing Nico to giggle causing several of the deities to stare in disbelief at him and Percy to laugh before ceasing the opportunity to put his arms around his cousins, both in good nature and for comfort if they needed it for later

**I wanted to believe I'd imagined the whole thing.**

"If i am imagining I don't want to know what that says about my sanity now." Percy stated

**But one thing was clear: Grover and Mr. Brunner were talking about me behind my back. They thought I was in some kind of danger.**

"When are you not?" Nico asked genuinely curious and slightly scared, he didn't want to lose his honorary big brother, Percy shrugged trying to make light of the question but Thalia saw the slight bit of fear hidden in his eyes, she also didn't want to lose her new little brother. Poseidon studied the demigods as, if any one bothered to check, the oceans suddenly became rough. Zeus and Hades and any-one who had children glowered at the floor or like Percy tried to make light of the question and laugh it off. A Heroes life is never a good one.

**The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam,**

"Three hours!" Hermes, Apollo Thalia and Nico shouted Percy grinned and yelled,

"Feel my Pain! You do not understand the pain it caused me"

**my eyes swimming with all the Greek and Roman names I'd misspelled, Mr. Brunner called me back inside.**

**For a moment, I was worried he'd found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but that didn't seem to be the problem.**

"Thank Gods" Hermes muttered under his breath

"You're welcome" Apollo uttered back to him

**"Percy," he said. "Don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's ... it's for the best."**

Poseidon winced slightly knowing that his son wouldn't take this conversation very well

**His tone was kind, but the words still embarrassed me. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other kids finishing the test could hear. Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and made sarcastic little kissing motions with her lips.**

"Awww, does wittle Nancy have a wittle crush on ickle Percy" Thalia teased, inwardly fuming. Percy lightly slapped her on her head.

**I mumbled, "Okay, sir."**

**"I mean ..." Mr. Brunner wheeled his chair back and forth, like he wasn't sure what to say. "This isn't the right place for you. It was only a matter of time."**

"He's not very good at this is he" Nico said wincing with Thalia

**My eyes stung.**

"Wimp" Ares laughed, Poseidon, Nico and Thalia glared at him while Percy rolled his eyes

**Here was my favorite teacher, in front of the class, telling me I couldn't handle it. After saying he believed in me all year, now he was telling me I was destined to get kicked out.**

Poseidon sighed sadly

**"Right," I said, trembling.**

**"No, no," Mr. Brunner said. "Oh, confound it all. What I'm trying to say ... you're not normal, Percy. That's nothing to be—"**

"He really shouldn't hint at it, if we don't know then we won't understand it'll seem as if he's insulting us" Thalia said sympathetic on both sides, knowing what Percy would have been feeling and knowing that Chiron was trying to say how special demigods are and comfort Percy.

**"Thanks," I blurted. "Thanks a lot, sir, for reminding me."**

**"Percy—"**

**But I was already gone.**

"Wimp" Ares snorted as Dionysus rolled his eyes, muttering about insolent demigods and how they never listen.

**On the last day of the term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase.**

**The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they were **_**rich **_**juvenile delinquents.**

"Let's do that I can shadow travel us to Switzerland and I'm sure Perce could find us a boat!" Nico insisted excited causing Thalia to shrug and Percy to roll his eyes but nod an affirmative,

"I can make you rich juvenile delinquents," said Hermes, "point me to the nearest bank and let me teach you some tricks of the trade and you'll be expert delinquents by next month if I take into account the books and possible failures"

"I'm fine with it" Poseidon shrugged, "if it'll help in quests I'm all for it"

"Don't you dare steal money from the mortals Hermes!" Zeus commanded

"But-"

"No."

"Awww! C'mon!"

**Their daddies were executives, or ambassadors, or celebrities.**

"yeah, well my daddie's the king of the gods" Thalia rolled her eyes

**I was a nobody, from a family of nobodies.**

"You're not a nobody Percy" Nico insisted

"Yeah you're a seaweed brain!" Thalia laughed

"I am Nobody though, just ask Clarisse, Grover and Annabeth" Percy grinned, at the confused glances he said, "2nd book."

**They asked me what I'd be doing this summer and I told them I was going back to the city.**

**What I didn't tell them was that I'd have to get a summer job walking dogs or selling magazine subscriptions, and spend my free time worrying about where I'd go to school in the fall.**

**"Oh," one of the guys said. "That's cool."**

**They went back to their conversation as if I'd never existed.**

"That's rude" Hestia exclaimed gaining several murmurs of agreement

**The only person I dreaded saying good-bye to was Grover, but as it turned out, I didn't have to. He'd booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as I had, so there we were, together again, heading into the city.**

"Oh, what a surprise!" Thalia exclaimed in mock surprise

"STALKER!" Apollo shouted before Artemus hit him over the head

"I want a stalker," Aphrodite whimpered

**During the whole bus ride, Grover kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers.**

"trying to see if there is any one with spare tin cans." Hermes snickered

**It occurred to me that he'd always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen.**

**Before, I'd always assumed he was worried about getting teased. But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound.**

**Finally I couldn't stand it anymore.**

**I said, "Looking for Kindly Ones?"**

"That's one way to scare the goat pellets out of a goat." Apollo snorted

**Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. "Wha—what do you mean?"**

**I confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr. Brunner the night before the exam.**

**Grover's eye twitched. "How much **_**did **_**you hear?"**

**"Oh ... not much. What's the summer solstice dead-line?"**

"Oh… not much. Just everything" Nico laughed

**He winced. "Look, Percy ... I was just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about demon math teachers …"**

"Grover's a really, really bad liar." Thalia stated

**"Grover—"**

**"And I was telling Mr. Brunner that maybe you were overstressed or something, because there was no such person as Mrs. Dodds, and ..."**

**"Grover, you're a really, really bad liar."**

Thalia went pale "I…I…I."

"What?" Nico asked as Percy arched his eyebrow

"I… I said… I said the same thing as… as kelp for Brains!" She exclaimed, "This is terrible!" Percy scowled as Nico snickered

**His ears turned pink.**

**From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business card. "Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer."**

**The card was in fancy script, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes, but I finally made out something like:**

"Why is it in fancy script?" Hephaestus asked, "Demigods are dyslexic"

"It's fun to watch them read it, if I'm suffering then they should too" Dionysus grinned

_**Grover Underwood**_

_**Keeper**_

_**Half-Blood Hill**_

_**Long Island, New York**_

_**(800)**_ _**009-0009**__** begin_of_the_skype_highlightingend_of_the_skype_hi ghlighting**_

**"What's Half—"**

"it is a whole divided by 2" Apollo smirked playfully

**"Don't say it aloud!" he yelped. "That's my, um ... summer address."**

**My heart sank. Grover had a summer home. I'd never considered that his family might be as rich as the others at Yancy.**

**"Okay," I said glumly. "So, like, if I want to come visit your mansion."**

"Where do they even live?" Nico asked

"You know, I don't know." Percy said surprised, "I've never really thought about it. They are usually just there but I'd assume that they live somewhere in the forest."

**He nodded. "Or...or if you need me."**

**"Why would I need you?"**

"That sounded mean." Hestia scolded

**It came out harsher than I meant it to.**

"Good." Hera huffed

**Grover blushed right down to his Adam's apple. "Look, Percy, the truth is, I—I kind of have to protect you."**

**I stared at him.**

**All year long, I'd gotten in fights, keeping bullies away from him. I'd lost sleep worrying that he'd get beaten up next year without me.**

"Awww," Aphrodite crooned

**And here he was acting like he was the one who defended **_**me.**_

**"Grover," I said, "What exactly are you protecting me from?"**

"Oh not much, just pretty much every monster and God in Greek mythology that wants to kill you." Nico said

**There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs.**

"Monster." Artemus stated as Poseidon tensed slightly

**The driver cursed and steered the Greyhound over to the side of the highway.**

**After a few minutes clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we'd all have to get off. Grover and I filed outside with everybody else.**

**We were on a stretch of country road—no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there. On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand.**

"You all should eat more harvest foods, like cereal, strawberries. In fact I'll give you some now." Demeter scolded Hades' eyes widened before he shouted,

"Don't you dare woman, no one will willingly eat that vile stuff you call food! If anyone wants we will ask!"

Zeus commanded "Athena continue reading."

**The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of blood red cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice**_**. **_**There were no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen.**

Thalia raised an eyebrow and said, "Socks?"

**I mean these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn.**

Poseidon looked up from the demigods and said, "Please tell me they aren't who I think they are."

"Wow, so you do have a brain in that waterlogged head of yours, I'm impressed." Athena said

**All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses.**

"Yes, it's definitely the Fates, Poseidon." Hades confirmed

"Great." Poseidon muttered

**The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at me.**

"Even better, next thing we know they'll cut the sting." Poseidon grouched

**I looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching.**

"A fair reaction them, I suppose." Aphrodite said, dabbing lipstick onto her mouth

**"Grover?" I said. "Hey, man—"**

**"Tell me they're not looking at you. They are, aren't they?"**

**"Yeah. Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit me?"**

"As much as we appreciate the humour I don't think it quite fits with the atmosphere right now." Hermes said

**"Not funny, Percy. Not funny at all."**

**The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors—gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears.**

"Oh, Great." Poseidon growled, inwardly panicking

**I heard Grover catch his breath.**

**"We're getting on the bus," he told me. "Come on."**

**"What?" I said. "It's a thousand degrees in there."**

"Get in the bus boy." Hephaestus grumbled

**"Come on!'" He pried open the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back.**

**Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me. The middle one cut the yarn, and I swear I could hear that **_**snip **_**across four lanes of traffic.**

"Oh no!" Hestia whimpered teary eyed with her hands over her mouth

**Her two friends balled up the electric-blue socks, leaving me wondering who they could possibly be for—Sasquatch or Godzilla.**

"Jackson, how are you alive if that is your string?" Athena asked, forming several theories

"Yeah, how're you alive seaweed brain?" Thalia queried

Percy shrugged and said, "It, err, wasn't my string. It was You-Know-Who's?" A solemn silence descended upon the demigods leaving the Gods wondering who's it was before Nico decided to break the silence with,

"Who, Voldemort's?" which effectively shattered the demigods sad moods and served to make the gods even more confused.

**At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life.**

"How would wrenching a chunk of metal out of the engine start the bus? Surely the fact that it is in the bus in the first place would mean it is meant to be there?" Nico asked

Hephaestus said "I could do it easily, but the driver? Unless he's one of my kids then he is highly unlikely to pull it off especially that quickly so it was probably the Fates, not even Zeus can understand those women."

"That's not really saying much though is it? I mean what can Zeus understand? I doubt he's even keeping up with the book" Hades snickered with Poseidon they were interrupted by thunder roaring across the sky but that and Zeus' aggressive expression just caused another round of laughter and Poseidon to stutter out,

"Ooh Drama!" causing even more laughter from the two brothers and soon Nico and Percy couldn't hold their laughter either, eventually they calmed enough for Athena to continue

**The passengers cheered.**

**"Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!"**

"About time." Poseidon rolled his eyes

**Once we got going, I started feeling feverish, as if I'd caught the flu.**

"I believe that would be from watching someone's life end like that." Athena mused

**Grover didn't look much better. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering.**

**"Grover?"**

**"Yeah?"**

**"What are you not telling me?"**

**He dabbed his forehead with his shirtsleeve. "Percy, what did you see back at the fruit stand?"**

**"You mean the old ladies? What is it about them, man? They're not like ... Mrs. Dodds, are they?"**

"A knitting marathon." Apollo snickered

**His expression was hard to read, but I got the feeling that the fruit-stand ladies were something much, much worse than Mrs. Dodds. **

"Much, much worse." Thalia said

**He said, "Just tell me what you saw."**

**"The middle one took out her scissors, and she cut the yarn."**

**He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might've been crossing himself, but it wasn't. It was something else, something almost—older.**

Athena raised her eyebrow"That's almost intelligent"

"Good old Percy, notice the small things but never the big picture." Thalia laughed

**He said, "You saw her snip the cord."**

**"Yeah. So?" But even as I said it, I knew it was a big deal.**

**"This is not happening," Grover mumbled. He started chewing at his thumb. "I don't want this to be like the last time."**

"He really needs to get over that" Thalia growled

**"What last time?"**

**"Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth."**

"C'mon Goat-boy, get over it all ready it was my choice! I'm going to beat it into you if you don't see sense soon" Thalia threatened

**"Grover," I said, because he was really starting to scare me. "What are you talking about?"**

"Wimp." Ares inserted

**"Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me."**

**This seemed like a strange request to me, but I promised he could.**

"While you usually keep a promise something tells me you won't keep this one." Nico said

"It didn't seem like an important promise at the time, if I'd known it was so important to Grover I would have kept it." Percy answered

**"Is this like a superstition or something?" I asked.**

**No answer.**

**"Grover—that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?"**

**He looked at me mournfully, like he was already picking the kind of flowers I'd like best on my coffin.**

"It's always good to be looked at like that." Nico agreed

***Note***

I'm sorry if you think Poseidon doesn't seem to care much about Percy, if you do here's my reasoning why (well I've noticed him to be less reactive than in other 'reading the books' fan fictions anyway.):

In the books when they first met, in Lightning Thief, Percy felt that Poseidon didn't know what to think of him, but he was also praised by him ('you are a true son of the sea god') and told that he did well, but this is happening before that so Poseidon still isn't sure how to behave around his son even though he still cares (because we all know he checked up on Percy every now and then(I might have him check up on Young Percy after Gabe is mentioned).

Poseidon in the Lightning Thief and Titans Curse (I think) was described to be as unreadable as the Ocean and I'm trying to replicate that in the books he only really seems to show emotion when he is alone with Percy aka any of his more favourable children (e.g. not Antaeus (son of Poseidon and Gaea) etc.) or in his realm when he is more relaxed not around the other Gods. So he could be having a mental breakdown or mid-immortal-life crisis and no-one would know.

His caring was more noticeable in the last chapters because he didn't expect Percy to appear, Percy was older than he last saw him and his son was suddenly surrounded by people who will probably want to kill him and he doesn't really know how to react to it (would you). That and we had his thoughts at the beginning.


	3. Even Bulls Love the Beach

TITLE: Dude! Put some pants on!

Aphrodite P.O.V

'I can't wait to start messing with the demigods love lives. Just because the girl's a follower of the Eternal boy hater doesn't mean I can't mess with her before her vow, and maybe after, depends on how much fun I'm having. Probably be a few centuries before then, who knows' Aphrodite mused, 'and the child of Hades, I'm thinking I'll let him find love on his own. Corpse lover's kids aren't fun to mess with, they don't find or show Love well, Poseidon's boy however… I'm going to have a lot of fun with him. They're always so passionate and protective combined with their powers, Hmmm… I haven't set up one of Uncle's kids with one of Feathers for a while. They're always a perfect match the Athenian plans and the Atlantian improvises and their parents, at least on Poseidon's end, act more civil towards each other. The relationships are always so tragic.' Aphrodite frowned, 'No wonder Uncle dislikes Athena so much 60% of the time she's behind the death, pain or failure of one of his children or helps the perpetrator escape, sometimes both, such as with Polyphemus the Cyclops*, John Barry*1, George Dewey *2 or Robert Blake*3.*7 But Oh! Such fun. It'll be like Helen and Paris all over again"

Apollo waved his hand in the air bouncing on his throne "Oh, oh, me, me, pick me"

Zeus sighed as the demigods smothered their laughs and instructed Athena to toss the book to him. Apollo spread his arms and coughed dramatically before proceeding to announce that…

Grover Unexpectedly Loses his Pants

Hermes snorted

Confession time:

"I've killed lots of animals" The Huntress-Who-could-do-with-touch-of-foundation-and -a-little-midnight-blue-makeup-around-her-black-ey e-makeup-to-bring-her-eyes-out-and-for-her-freckle s-to-stand-out-more bluntly stated causing everyone to stare at her and her to shrug "what? In my defence they tried to kill me first"

Hades' way-too-pale-but-I-can-work-with-that-boy grinned and said "Are we giving our confessions to the Gods? Because I've assisted my dad in thinking of new tortures for the eternally damned. It's fun" and turned to the wonderfully-tanned-skinned-son-of-Poseidon-with-wi ndblown-hair-and-all-natural-greek-good-looks-Pers eus Jackson who frowned and asked,

"Does that time when you were hyped up on Mountain Dew and Thalia was being particularly irritating which caused me to snap and cause a hurricane that caused Manhattan to lose electricity for three days count or does it have to be something I meant to do?" you'd think that Uncle P would be disapproving but he looked amused that his son had caused a minor disaster. The girl grinned and stated,

"That'll do" Apollo smirked and said

"My confession is that I caved into temptation and lust and…" 'Aww, so sweet'

"Nobody particularly wants to know about your conquests right now, mate" Hermes chuckled

I ditched Grover as soon as we got to the bus terminal.

Nico raised his eyebrow, "That's not like you." The son of the Ocean shrugged and declared,

"He was freaking me out, better to get away before I did something I'd regret."

I know, I know. It was rude. But Grover was freaking me out, looking at me like I was a dead man, muttering "Why does this always happen?" and "Why does it always have to be sixth grade?"

"Make a memo boys, I'm going to get it through Goat boys head that it wasn't his fault if it's the last thing I ever do." Thalia stated as Zeus' eyes glinted dangerously.

No P.O.V

Whenever he got upset, Grover's bladder acted up, so I wasn't surprised when, as soon as we got off the bus, he made me promise to wait for him, then made a beeline for the restroom.

"Does this happen for all Satyrs or just Grover, I know the Panes*4 react like that but they rarely care where they go and who or what they go in front of." Hermes pondered causing Aphrodite to shiver in disgust

Instead of waiting, I got my suitcase, slipped outside, and caught the first taxi uptown.

Poseidon shifted slightly in his throne 'That Slob better not harm my child again. I hate the situation any way no need to advertise it and I doubt Perce would appreciate it too much' he sighed 'at least it never got too bad, so far at least'

"East One-hundred-and-fourth and First," I told the driver.

A word about my mother, before you meet her.

"Awesome." Nico stated,

Thalia grinned, "Sweet."

Her name is Sally Jackson and she's the best person in the world, which just proves my theory that the best people have the rottenest luck.

"Nah that's just you Cuz, She had half of your DNA so until you were born she had your luck" Thalia teased. Poseidon frowned, worried.

Nico said "You do have incredibly bad luck," he leaned into Percy seeking confirmation that he's still there, "but then again in order to survive with said bad luck you'd need very, very, very, very, very, very, very," Percy lightly slapped his head,

"Are you done?"

He grinned "Not quite, very good luck" Poseidon's complexion paled by about two shades, unnoticeable unless you were looking for it. "But then again having that luck means your luck isn't that bad, but the fact that you need it means it's terrible. It's all one vicious circle. Sort of gives you hope doesn't it, just too cruelly yank it out from under you like Sisyphus and his rock." He trailed of sadly

"It's sad isn't it if you go by that logic it means that something really bad is about to happen to us when we get back, confirmed I guess by that letter we were given (with TLH, SoN, MoA, HoH)" Thalia half teased. The Gods nervously looked at each other as Poseidon lightly scowled; let's just say that the sailors and trawler men are starting to experience powerful waves and not so fruitful hauls.

Her own parents died in a plane crash when she was five,

Poseidon glared at Zeus almost playfully*5

and she was raised by an uncle who didn't care much about her. She wanted to be a novelist, so she spent high school working to save enough money for a college with a good creative-writing program.

"Wow, well done, Ol' Seaweed's finally found an intelligent maiden to woo." Athena smirked

"Just because you like nerds doesn't mean I have to like one Owl head, you like people who know random facts I like those who have a personality, it's an added bonus if they know about or enjoy the Sea." Poseidon retorted

"At least…" Athena started,

"Your dates can win a Pub quiz" Poseidon inserted to Athena's steadily growing ire and everyone else's amusement

"Oh, at least I can get one; I'm amazed you can even get a date Fish Breath. Your preferred clothing is that of a beach bum." Poseidon just shrugged amused and said,

"I like looking like an as you say 'Beach Bum' better than a museum curator Yellow feet."

"At least I don't have scales." She growled

"I only have scales if I want them*6 and right now I don't. Besides I'd rather have scales than mottled feathers."

Just as she was about to retort Nico whispered loudly (does that make sense?) "Hey Perce they remind me of you and Annabeth." Thalia snorted and said,

"It does doesn't it. Sadly this means they're only going to stop when they (a) get distracted by something major or (b) start trying to kill each other," the just so her cousins can hear, "or (c) in which one of them spontaneously grabs the other and start kissing like their lives depend on it and frankly I doubt it in this case." Percy elbowed her painfully in the gut causing her to wheeze and glare at him as sparks flittered over her skin. The two Gods stopped arguing and stared at them as Apollo and Hermes snorted but just before a fight broke out between the two young demigods, Zeus motioned for Apollo to read and Thalia reluctantly uncurled her fist.

Then her uncle got cancer, and she had to quit school her senior year to take care of him. After he died, she was left with no money, no family, and no diploma.

Artemis frowned sadly

The only good break she ever got was meeting my dad.

Poseidon smiled tenderly

I don't have any memories of him, just this sort of warm glow, maybe the barest trace of his smile.

"Did you visit him brother" Zeus threatened, Percy looked up towards his dad curiously

"Yes, I did dear brother. Why do you ask?" his dad said smiling mischievously

"How many times?" Zeus said gritting his teeth

"How many times did I visit him and be within touching distance or how many times my essence has been near him? Because the second I can't really answer maybe once a week at most just to speed up any healing needed and to check in but that was only during the school holidays, mostly any way." at this he glanced at Percy, who blushed and nodded knowing what he was hinting at, "The first however only a handful of times and most of them he was either asleep or didn't see me. And Zeus before you go crazy can I say everyone visits their kids and while I was around more than usual, can I say I only have one child and you're out to kill him at a moment's notice. Frankly I think I'm aloud to keep an eye on him don't you think?" Zeus growled and motioned Apollo to continue.

My mom doesn't like to talk about him because it makes her sad. She has no pictures. See, they weren't married. She told me he was rich and important, and their relationship was a secret. Then one day, he set sail across the Atlantic on some important journey, and he never came back.

Lost at sea, my mom told me. Not dead. Lost at sea.

"Clever" Hermes approved, "She's telling you an abstract version of the truth. It's completely open to interpretation, even better than a lie in this case and you can't be angry at the for not telling you when you find out because she did tell you"

She worked odd jobs, took night classes to get her high school diploma, and raised me on her own. She never complained or got mad.

"That's a talent mother's never going to learn." Hephaestus muttered

Not even once. But I knew I wasn't an easy kid.

"That's an understatement." Thalia declared, "That's like saying Poseidon likes water or Hephaestus is okay with mechanics" The Gods all raised an eyebrow as Percy scowled at her sadly the effect was ruined by his blush

Finally, she married Gabe Ugliano,

"Who's that?" Nico asked confused

"Yeah I thought she's marrying Mr. Blowfish this year" Thalia said frowning trying to remember if she'd heard that name before

"Blofis actually and _Gabe_," he sneered the name his eyes glinting angrily but his facial expression changed to unreadable, "was the creep she married to keep me alive. Though with what he was doing to her I'd rather she hadn't."

"What do you mean?" Nico asked warily, surprisingly it wasn't Percy who answered but Poseidon, who also looked unreadable but calmly said,

"I have a feeling this book is going to tell us if Apollo continues"

who was nice the first thirty seconds we knew him, then showed his true colours as a world-class jerk.

Artemis nodded grimly starting to suspect where this was going, the stories her Sisters had told her…

When I was young, I nick named him Smelly Gabe. I'm sorry, but it's the truth. The guy reeked like mouldy garlic pizza wrapped in gym shorts.

Athena looked thoughtfully at the book forming her theories; it was obvious that Sea foam knew something otherwise he wouldn't be so unreadable right now. It must be bad but necessary, hmm…

Between the two of us, we made my mom's life pretty hard. The way Smelly Gabe treated her,

Artemis gritted her teeth at how ominous that sounded for the poor woman

the way he and I got along ... well, when I came home is a good example.

I walked into our little apartment, hoping my mom would be home from work. Instead, Smelly Gabe was in the living room, playing poker with his buddies. The television blared ESPN.

"Typical male!" Artemis spat, "Partaking in gambling and sport." Apollo frowned at her and protested,

"Hey! Sis not a lot of men act like that, in fact as far as I know none of the Gods act like that. Not even Dionysus, he just occasionally pretends to act like that! You know this"

Dionysus' "I can act however I want!" has smothered by an almost screech of

"Don't call me sis! And not everything is Sunshine and Daisies Apollo like the impression you seem to be under. You're always partying and…"

"Oi! I never said anything was sunshine and daisies. Sis and unlike you've seem to have forgotten I'm not all Light and no Burn I can be serious when I deem something worth being serious about such as my Oracle in danger or you in…"

"I have fun on my hunts and I don't need a male too…"

"Quiet this argument isn't going to finish any time soon so I'd appreciate it if you continued reading" Zeus interrupted sharply, reluctantly Apollo did so

Chips and beer cans were strewn all over the carpet.

Artemis huffed pointedly as if her point was proved and most of the Gods rolled their eyes

Hardly looking up, he said around his cigar, "So, you're home."

"I don't like him" Thalia stated. Nico nodded.

"Where's my mom?"

"Working," he said. "You got any cash?"

"He asked you for cash!" Thalia practically growled as Poseidon's eyes darkened

That was it. No _Welcome back. Good to see you. How has your life been the last six months?_

"You've been gone for six months and that was the first thing he said to you?" Hestia asked Percy nodded his eyes on his father

Gabe had put on weight. He looked like a tuskless walrus in thrift-store clothes.

"Ew." Demeter said as Aphrodite shivered looking ready to throw up

He had about three hairs on his head, all combed over his bald scalp, as if that made him handsome or something.

"For him to be handsome he'd need more than a makeover. He'd need to change himself" Aphrodite managed, "and I think it is safe to say that it's not going to happen"

He managed the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, but he stayed home most of the time.

I don't know why he hadn't been fired long before.

Poseidon scowled and said in clipped tones, "That is because of me" Everyone looked at him disbelieving, "You needed more money than what your mum could get and as much as I hate it you needed him to be there so you could stay hidden"

He just kept on collecting paychecks, spending the money on cigars that made me nauseous, and on beer, of course. Always beer.

"Man, I know how that feels." Thalia said

Whenever I was home, he expected me to provide his gambling funds. He called that our "guy secret." Meaning, if I told my mom, he would punch my lights out.

"Did he punch you?" Nico asked his brown eyes darkening to black. Percy sighed but answered truthfully

"Occasionally but I soon learnt to be able to predict when I was pushing and to leave before one of us snapped, but it wasn't too bad just a few bad bruises but they healed quick enough. Though I'm starting to guess dad had something to do with that" Poseidon nodded tersely as Nico started attracting shadows and Talia sparked in their seats.

"I don't have any cash," I told him.

He raised a greasy eyebrow. Gabe could sniff out money like a bloodhound, which was surprising, since his own smell should've covered up everything else.

Athena's eyes widened as she figured out the situation and muttered, "That's clever actually. Get a mortal bad enough but just tolerable and is un-hygienic enough to release a powerful scent and any demigod who doesn't know they're one can be successfully hidden for years at a time. But the mortal would have to be so vile that…."

"You took a taxi from the bus station," he said. "Probably paid with a twenty. Got six, seven bucks in change. Somebody expects to live under this roof, he ought to carry his own weight. Am I right, Eddie?"

"Wow, I didn't think it had a brain!" Hermes exclaimed genuinely astonished

Eddie, the super of the apartment building, looked at me with a twinge of sympathy. "Come on, Gabe," he said. "The kid just got here."

"At least one of them has manners." Hera approved

"Am I _right_?_" _Gabe repeated.

Eddie scowled into his bowl of pretzels. The other two guys passed gas in harmony.

"On second thoughts… I'll take that back for you." Demeter groaned disgusted "A harvest behind a plough should help this… Eddie, I'm not sure about the others they'll need much longer seven years maybe, _Gabriel_ even longermuch longer."

"You know for once you talking about the Harvest doesn't give me an urge to slap you." Hades commented

"Fine," I said. I dug a wad of dollars out of my pocket and threw the money on the table. "I hope you lose."

"Your report card came, brain boy!"

"Oh please Percy's the opposite of brain boy. He's… dead brained boy." Nico teased to lighten the atmosphere

"Nah, that's you Nico, Percy's too water logged to have a brain that's why he's called Seaweed brain." Thalia absentmindedly corrected causing Percy roll his eyes

he shouted after me. "I wouldn't act so snooty!"

I slammed the door to my room, which really wasn't my room. During school months, it was Gabe's "study." He didn't study anything in there except old car magazines, but he loved shoving my stuff in the closet, leaving his muddy boots on my windowsill, and doing his best to make the place smell like his nasty cologne and cigars and stale beer.

"Nice." Hermes stated

I dropped my suitcase on the bed. Home sweet home.

"Sarcasm, you've gotta' love it" Nico grinned with his cousins

Gabe's smell was almost worse than the nightmares about Mrs. Dodds, or the sound of that old fruit lady's shears snipping the yarn.

"Wow, he just gets more appealing the more I learn about him" Apollo snickered

But as soon as I thought that, my legs felt weak. I remembered Grover's look of panic—how he'd made me promise I wouldn't go home without him. A sudden chill rolled through me. I felt like someone—something—was looking for me right now, maybe pounding its way up the stairs, growing long, horrible talons.

Everyone nervously shifted in their thrones

Then I heard my mom's voice. "Percy?"

She opened the bedroom door, and my fears melted. My mother can make me feel good just by walking into the room.

"Aww" Hera, Demeter and Aphrodite cooed.

Her eyes sparkle and change colour in the light. Her smile is as warm as a quilt. She's got a few grey streaks mixed in with her long brown hair, but I never think of her as old.

Poseidon smiled sadly

When she looks at me, it's like she's seeing all the good things about me, none of the bad. I've never heard her raise her voice or say an unkind word to anyone, not even me or Gabe.

"Oh, Percy." She hugged me tight. "I can't believe it. You've grown since Christmas!"

"That generally tends to happen" Dionysus yawned earning glares of the demigods.

Her red-white-and-blue Sweet on America uniform smelled like the best things in the world: chocolate, licorice, and all the other stuff she sold at the candy shop in Grand Central. She'd brought me a huge bag of "free samples," the way she always did when I came home.

"I want free samples" Apollo whined Hermes grinned and snapped his fingers giving Apollo and himself a large bowl of sweets and upon seeing the Demigods pleading looks snapped them a bowl to share as well causing the big three to groan and hope that they wouldn't have to put up with sugar high children later.

We sat together on the edge of the bed. While I attacked the blueberry sour strings, she ran her hand through my hair and demanded to know everything I hadn't put in my letters. She didn't mention anything about my getting expelled. She didn't seem to care about that. But was I okay? Was her little boy doing all right?

I told her she was smothering me, and to lay off and all that, but secretly, I was really, really glad to see her.

"You should tell her that boy, I sure as Hades never get told it" Hera mentioned Hades glared at her in irritation

Ares shrugged and said "only if you start a war"

"You don't deserve it so why would I" Hephaestus grunted

From the other room, Gabe yelled, "Hey, Sally—how about some bean dip, huh?"

Poseidon gritted his teeth along with most everyone else.

I gritted my teeth. My mom is the nicest lady in the world. She should've been married to a millionaire, not to some jerk like Gabe.

For her sake, I tried to sound upbeat about my last days at Yancy Academy. I told her I wasn't too down about the expulsion. I'd lasted almost the whole year this time. I'd made some new friends. I'd done pretty well in Latin.

"Yeah why is that? Most demigods struggle with it a lot but I seem to pick it up almost as fast as ancient Greek." Percy asked causing Hera to shift on her throne and prompting Poseidon to say,

"I didn't change much in the transition to Rome so my roman knowledge can sometimes flow into my Greek," he frowned, "it's rare but you can get a little bit of roman knowledge, not much, but some.*8"

"Oh,"

Thalia snorted "Typical Percy answer"

And honestly, the fights hadn't been as bad as the headmaster said. I liked Yancy Academy. I really did. I put such a good spin on the year, I almost convinced myself.

I started choking up, thinking about Grover and Mr. Brunner. Even Nancy Bobofit suddenly didn't seem so bad. Until that trip to the museum ...

"What?" my mom asked. Her eyes tugged at my conscience, trying to pull out the secrets. "Did something scare you?"

"Yes" Thalia said

"No, Mom."

I felt bad lying. I wanted to tell her about Mrs. Dodds and the three old ladies with the yarn, but I thought it would sound stupid.

"She can see through the mist and once I found out she was pregnant I explained things to her." Poseidon explained, "She'd understand"

She pursed her lips. She knew I was holding back, but she didn't push me.

"I have a surprise for you," she said. "We're going to the beach."

Poseidon grinned in anticipation

My eyes widened. "Montauk?"

Percy blushed and grinned at his dad, eyes sparkling like a clear lake

"Three nights—same cabin."

"When?"

She smiled. "As soon as I get changed."

I couldn't believe it. My mom and I hadn't been to Montauk the last two summers, because Gabe said there wasn't enough money.

Poseidon growled, "I made sure you had enough money, what does that slob spend it on surely it can't all be gambling funds"

Gabe appeared in the doorway and growled, "Bean dip, Sally? Didn't you hear me?"

I wanted to punch him, but I met my mom's eyes and I understood she was offering me a deal: be nice to Gabe for a little while. Just until she was ready to leave for Montauk. Then we would get out of here.

"I was on my way, honey," she told Gabe. "We were just talking about the trip."

Gabe's eyes got small. "The trip? You mean you were serious about that?"

"She wouldn't have brought it up if she wasn't serious about it" Athena stated

"I knew it," I muttered. "He won't let us go."

"Of course he will," my mom said evenly. "Your step father is just worried about money. That's all. Besides," she added, "Gabriel won't have to settle for bean dip. I'll make him enough seven-layer dip for the whole weekend. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works."

"Bribery works 10/10 if you get the right price." Hermes approved

Gabe softened a bit. "So this money for your trip ... it comes out of your clothes budget, right?"

"What!?," Aphrodite exclaimed, "No lady should have to give up her clothes."

"Not everyone cares about clothes Barbie." Artemis said as her brother continued reading

"Yes, honey," my mother said.

"And you won't take my car anywhere but there and back."

"We'll be very careful."

Gabe scratched his double chin. "Maybe if you hurry with that seven-layer dip... And maybe if the kid apologizes for interrupting my poker game."

"'Cause that's going to happen" Nico snapped shaking slightly from his sugar rush

Maybe if I kick you in your soft spot, I thought. And make you sing soprano for a week.

Hades smirked approvingly as everyone grinned at the thought and Ares cheered anticipating a fight.

But my mom's eyes warned me not to make him mad. Why did she put up with this guy? I wanted to scream. Why did she care what he thought?

"Yes why?" asked Thalia irritated muscles twitching restraining her from hyper activity

"I'm sorry," I muttered. "I'm really sorry I interrupted your incredibly important poker game. Please go back to it right now."

"And the sarcasm strikes again." Nico snickered

Gabe's eyes narrowed. His tiny brain was probably trying to detect sarcasm in my statement. "Yeah, whatever," he decided. He went back to his game.

"Wow." Said Thalia dumbfounded

"How did he not notice that!?" Apollo asked

"The kids got talent" Hermes smirked causing Dionysus to snort and say

"A talent for trouble."

"Thank you, Percy," my mom said. "Once we get to Montauk, we'll talk more about... whatever you've forgotten to tell me, okay?"

"She should have made you tell her." Athena shook her head

For a moment, I thought I saw anxiety in her eyes—the same fear I'd seen in Grover during the bus ride—as if my mom too felt an odd chill in the air. But then her smile returned, and I figured I must have been mistaken.

"You should trust your instincts." Poseidon commented seriously

She ruffled my hair and went to make Gabe his seven-layer dip.

An hour later we were ready to leave.

Gabe took a break from his poker game long enough to watch me lug my mom's bags to the car. He kept griping and groaning about losing her cooking—and more important, his '78 Camaro—for the whole weekend.

"We-el, he's got his priorities right," Apollo commented just before Artemis slapped him, the sound echoing throughout the throne room

"Not a scratch on this car, brain boy," he warned me as I loaded the last bag. "Not one little scratch."

"Why's he saying that to you?" Nico asked, "Did you used to go around scratching cars in your spare time?" Percy just shrugged, smiling.

Like I'd be the one driving.

I was twelve. But that didn't matter to Gabe. If a seagull so much as pooped on his paint job, he'd find a way to blame me.

"I'm sure seagulls like you, Fish boy, you probably smell like fish to them and if they follow you into a water source you'll soon be surrounded by a fish dinner." Thalia sniped

"She's right, when we went to the aquarium, indecently I'm choosing the next trip, the fish looked at me weirdly," Nico paused trying to remember what he was saying, "Any way, the fish at the aquarium swarmed you. It was funny, do you remember everyone's faces as like 15 sharks practically charged towards you trying to get your attention?" he broke off snickering, "it was like a feeding frenzy with no food. What did they say it was?"

Percy chuckled, "'A RARE PHENOMENOM NEVER BEFORE SEEN IN SHARKS IN CAPTIVITY' the other fish were either much more discreet or less noticeable when they go crazy luckily they mostly wanted to gossip about me than play with me."

Watching him lumber back toward the apartment building, I got so mad I did something I can't explain. As Gabe reached the doorway, I made the hand gesture I'd seen Grover make on the bus, a sort of warding-off-evil gesture, a clawed hand over my heart, then a shoving movement toward Gabe. The screen door slammed shut so hard it whacked him in the butt and sent him flying up the staircase as if he'd been shot from a cannon.

Zeus and Hades grumbled as Poseidon grinned and said, "That was your power over storms showing up. Keep practicing and you'll be able to sustain a powerful hurricane."

Maybe it was just the wind, or some freak accident with the hinges, but I didn't stay long enough to find out.

I got in the Camaro and told my mom to step on it.

"Good-bye Gabe, Hello freedom!" Hermes cheered.

Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island. It was a little pastel box with faded curtains, half sunken into the dunes. There was always sand in the sheets and spiders in the cabinets,

"Well you're not going to be taking Annabeth there unless you spring clean Water buoy" _(get it? Boy, buoy? Oh your no fun)_ Thalia laughed as Percy groaned

and most of the time the sea was too cold to swim in.

Dionysus snorted "Like you care"

I loved the place.

"Of course." Athena rolled her eyes in disgust

We'd been going there since I was a baby. My mom had been going even longer. She never exactly said, but I knew why the beach was special to her. It was the place where she'd met my dad.

"Aww," Aphrodite cooed

As we got closer to Montauk, she seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappearing from her face. Her eyes turned the colour of the sea.

"So sweet." Aphrodite continued

We got there at sunset, opened all the cabin's windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine. We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls, and munched on blue jelly beans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples my mom had brought from work.

"Why is everything blue, I noticed it earlier but thought it was just a fluke? Surely it should be green that's the king Fish's colour." Zeus asked causing Hades to roll his eyes and Poseidon to smirk

I guess I should explain the blue food.

"Ask and you shall be answered." Apollo exclaimed

See, Gabe had once told my mom there was no such thing. They had this fight, which seemed like a really small thing at the time. But ever since, my mom went out of her way to eat blue.

Hermes whispered to Apollo, "Kinda' like Hephaestus going out of his way to embarrass his wife and Ares, or Hera in catching father cheating and then, of course, father going out of his way to not be caught doing so by turning himself into a swan or cow or something don't you think?" causing snickers to erupt between the two recalling past situations like that.

"Would it not get irritating eating things the same colour and flavour continuously?" Artemis asked in which Percy answered with a shrug

She baked blue birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry smoothies. She bought blue-corn tortilla chips and brought home blue candy from the shop. This—along with keeping her maiden name, Jackson, rather than calling herself Mrs. Ugliano—was proof that she wasn't totally suckered by Gabe. She did have a rebellious streak, like me.

"Poor you, you were double cursed, both your mum and dad's rebelliousness gave you no room for the instincts to shut up if you want to live." Nico said sadly looking at Percy

"You have more than a rebellious streak; it's more like you've got an obedience streak." Thalia said

When it got dark, we made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Mom told me stories about when she was a kid, back before her parents died in the plane crash. She told me about the books she wanted to write someday, when she had enough money to quit the candy shop.

Eventually, I got up the nerve to ask about what was always on my mind whenever we came to Montauk—my father.

Poseidon looked wary at that

Mom's eyes went all misty. I figured she would tell me the same things she always did, but I never got tired of hearing them.

The Sea god smiled sadly

"He was kind, Percy," she said. "Tall, handsome, and powerful. But gentle, too. You have his black hair, you know, and his green eyes." Mom fished a blue jelly bean out of her candy bag. "I wish he could see you, Percy. He would be so proud."

"I am." He proclaimed

I wondered how she could say that. What was so great about me? A dyslexic, hyperactive boy with a D+ report card, kicked out of school for the sixth time in six years.

"I don't care about that." He grinned

"How old was I?" I asked. "I mean ... when he left?"

She watched the flames. "He was only with me for one summer, Percy. Right here at this beach. This cabin."

"But... he knew me as a baby."

"No, honey. He knew I was expecting a baby, but he never saw you. He had to leave before you were born."

I tried to square that with the fact that I seemed to remember ... something about my father. A warm glow. A smile.

Zeus glared daggers at Poseidon who cheekily saluted him smirking

I had always assumed he knew me as a baby. My mom had never said it outright, but still, I'd felt it must be true. Now, to be told that he'd never even seen me...

I felt angry at my father.

Now Poseidon winced as Percy smiled apologetically at him

Maybe it was stupid, but I resented him for going on that ocean voyage, for not having the guts to marry my mom. He'd left us, and now we were stuck with Smelly Gabe.

"Are you going to send me away again?" I asked her. "To another boarding school?"

She pulled a marshmallow from the fire. "I don't know, honey." Her voice was heavy. "I think... I think we'll have to do something."

"Because you don't want me around?"

"Now don't be harsh sweetie she's only trying to protect you." Hestia quietly admonished

I regretted the words as soon as they were out.

"Good." Hera said harshly

My mom's eyes welled with tears. She took my hand, squeezed it tight. "Oh, Percy, no. I—I _have _to, honey. For your own good. I have to send you away."

Her words reminded me of what Mr. Brunner had said—that it was best for me to leave Yancy.

"Because I'm not normal," I said.

"Bah, normal's boring." Hermes dismissed

"You say that as if it's a bad thing, Percy. But you don't realize how important you are.

"Very important." Nico stated seriously. The deities in the room looked around nervously

I thought Yancy Academy would be far enough away. I thought you'd finally be safe."

"Safe from what?"

She met my eyes, and a flood of memories came back to me—all the weird, scary things that had ever happened to me, some of which I'd tried to forget.

During third grade, a man in a black trench coat had stalked me on the playground. When the teachers threatened to call the police, he went away growling, but no one believed me when I told them that under his broad-brimmed hat, the man only had one eye, right in the middle of his head.

"One of my under sea Cyclops', he wanted to go above ground for a while to visit some of his more," Poseidon paused 'there really is no easy way to say, more wild demigod eating brothers, is there?' "or rather less creative brothers*9. Anyway I agreed but asked if he could check up on you while he was there. He must have preferred your company" Poseidon shrugged unconcerned

Before that—a really early memory. I was in preschool, and a teacher accidentally put me down for a nap in a cot that a snake had slithered into.

My mom screamed when she came to pick me up and found me playing with a limp, scaly rope I'd somehow managed to strangle to death with my meaty toddler hands.

"Hopefully that's not a sign that Hera wants something with you *10" Nico said worried as Hera glanced at the ceiling trying to not attract attention

In every single school, something creepy had happened, something unsafe, and I was forced to move.

I knew I should tell my mom about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds at the art museum, about my weird hallucination that I had sliced my math teacher into dust with a sword. But I couldn't make myself tell her. I had a strange feeling the news would end our trip to Montauk, and I didn't want that.

"You're putting yourself and your mother in danger!" Artemis snapped as Percy guiltily stared at his shoes

"I've tried to keep you as close to me as I could," my mom said. "They told me that was a mistake. But there's only one other option, Percy—the place your father wanted to send you. And I just... I just can't stand to do it."

"She's also putting him in danger Moonshine so don't go all feminist on us." Surprisingly, Dionysus drawled

"My father wanted me to go to a special school?"

"Not a school," she said softly. "A summer camp."

My head was spinning. Why would my dad—who hadn't even stayed around long enough to see me born—talk to my mom about a summer camp? And if it was so important, why hadn't she ever mentioned it before?

"I'm sorry, Percy," she said, seeing the look in my eyes. "But I can't talk about it. I—I couldn't send you to that place. It might mean saying good-bye to you for good."

"For good? But if it's only a summer camp ..."

She turned toward the fire, and I knew from her expression that if I asked her any more questions she would start to cry.

"I hate it when women use their tears on you." Apollo muttered

That night I had a vivid dream.

"Oh no." Thalia and Nico said in unison as everyone else glanced at each other in worry

It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a white horse and a golden eagle,

"Eww, you think our dads are beautiful! That's weird Kelp head" Thalia shivered teasing him, making Apollo, Hermes, Nico and Hades burst out laughing, Percy blush and gape like the fish he sort of is, Zeus to glare at everyone and Poseidon to raise an eyebrow amused.

were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf.

"Oh, now everything is back to normal." Hermes stated

The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagles wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.

"Oh joy. So father and Uncle P are getting goaded into a major fight or war by a creepy voice, who I don't think is Uncle H." Apollo concluded unsure as to who it could be, "if it is Hades though I have a feeling it would be better than any alternative." The Demigods shared a knowing glance as the tension in the room rose. "I don't suppose any of you will tell us who it is?"

"Sorry." Thalia stated

"No can do." Nico answered

"Hey at least we now have proof for father that Poseidon didn't take the lightning bolt." Hermes said

Zeus just said, "We'll see" and motioned to keep reading

I ran toward them, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was running in slow motion. I knew I would be too late. I saw the eagle dive down, its beak aimed at the horse's wide eyes, and I screamed, _No!_

"Ha, take that, brother. I win." Zeus claimed as lightning flashed triumphantly across the sky above

Poseidon just rolled his eyes and said, "Like I always said 'you would have done well as the king of theatre Zeus' and as you well know 'just because you won a battle doesn't mean you've won the war'"

I woke with a start.

Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and twenty-foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery.

With the next thunderclap, my mom woke. She sat up, eyes wide, and said, "Hurricane."

"Why would I send a hurricane towards you even if I'm angry I know not to send them at my children especially if they don't know who I am." Poseidon mused as Percy thought back to what his mother said about the monsters poor eyesight could his father be assisting here?

I knew that was crazy. Long Island never sees hurricanes this early in the summer. But the ocean seemed to have forgotten.

Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand on end.

Ares leaned forward in anticipation

Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice—someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door. My mother sprang out of bed in her nightgown and threw open the lock.

Grover stood framed in the doorway against a backdrop of pouring rain. But he wasn't... he wasn't exactly Grover.

"Searching all night," he gasped. "What were you thinking?"

My mother looked at me in terror—not scared of Grover, but of why he'd come.

"Percy," she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. "What happened at school? What didn't you tell me?"

I was frozen, looking at Grover. I couldn't understand what I was seeing.

"You still can't." Thalia shook her head, "Poor Percy" said 'poor Percy' glowered darkly at her making her have to supress a shiver

_"O Zeu kai alloi theoi!" _he yelled. "It's right behind me! Didn't you _tell _her?"

"Why do we say that?" Percy asked

"Say what?" Demeter asked

"'Oh Zeus and all the Gods' why not Oh Poseidon and all the Gods or Oh Hestia or Hermes and all the Gods."

"Because Zeus is vain and wants all the attention." Hades answered before anyone else could then laughed with Poseidon as thunder echoed throughout the building

"Ignore the Ass (donkey) and the Zombie, but it is because I'm the King of the Gods so it's only fair I'm declared first."

"Look Baldy (eagle) if being named in a cuss is proclaiming you as our King then surely Hades over there," amused Poseidon jerked his head in Hades' direction, "should be the King as his name is used more than yours"

"And as you're the King surely it is dishonour to use your name as a cuss and so we should be using someone else's name if any to do so." Percy queried, ignoring the steady stream of thunder that had been heard since the conversation started "unless you're not really the king." Zeus quickly irritated with the conversation was sparking and seeing this Apollo read on.

I was too shocked to register that he'd just cursed in Ancient Greek, and I'd understood him perfectly.

I was too shocked to wonder how Grover had gotten here by himself in the middle of the night. Because Grover didn't have his pants on

"exhibitionist." Apollo chastised Thalia, Nico and Percy snorted into their almost empty bowl of sweets

— and where his legs should be ... where his legs should be ...

My mom looked at me sternly and talked in a tone she'd never used before: _"Percy. _Tell me _now_!"

I stammered something about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds, and my mom stared at me, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning.

She grabbed her purse, tossed me my rain jacket, and said, "Get to the car. Both of you. _Go_!_"_

Grover ran for the Camaro—but he wasn't running, exactly. He was trotting, shaking his shaggy hindquarters, and suddenly his story about a muscular disorder in his legs made sense to me. I understood how he could run so fast and still limp when he walked.

Because where his feet should be, there were no feet. There were cloven hooves.

"I never saw that coming." Hermes said blankly before snickering into his phone

('_Hey your hair'ssss in my face and your breath tassstsss like blueberriesss'_ George muttered before saying '_I don't like blueberriesss. I like ratssss though' _

'_Shhh, Sssweetie or Hermessss won't give you any if you keep interrupting his phonecall'_ Martha chastised

'_Phonecall? I thought he was lissstening to the book' _George exclaimed

'_He'sss multi-tasking Georgie.'_ Martha explained)

Help: if you have any ideas for nick names or insults for the gods please tell me I might be able to work them in sooner or later (the main arguments are probibly going to be between the Big three, Athena and Poseidon, and the demigods but I could still work in the others)

Please tell me which god and then the nickname/insult

I try not to use the same name more than one (unless cannon so Goat boy, corpse breath, Ol' seaweed, seaweed brain etc.)

I think you can tell that I like Poseidon's character a lot if you hate him you can just look at it at a darker angle i.e. when Percy's thinking about whether or not the hurricane was Poseidon helping them you could have it as him just venting his anger and they're in the way.

* Poseidon sent raging storms after Odysseus

*1 Commodore John Barry-"Father of the American Navy" (I don't know how he died but I'm just finding naval names)

*2 George Dewey — Hero of the Battle of Manila Bay in Spanish-American War; first and only Admiral of the Navy

*3 Robert Blake "Father of the British Royal Navy" (1,2,3 are just random people I chose to be sons of Poseidon I don't know whether it fits with my story)

*4 Panes- like satyrs but not. Pans followers. They've got goat facial features as well as the hind legs of a goat

*5 he'd be used to Zeus' ways by now and he knows Zeus couldn't have known who they were but he still cares somewhat to object a little

*6 I'm sure if he wants he can look like he wants if he wants to look like a merman or like Triton or a fish then he's a god I'm sure he can

*7 Athena and Poseidon's rivalry are enjoyed by many but for it to be still happening I'm sure there had to have been other incidents and in the myths when Polyphemuswas blinded Poseidon sent stormy seas and tried to sink them (or at least Odysseus) but they prayed to Athena and she helped them survive Poseidon's anger, so I think that this would have happened again after and with their rivalry they would probably go after each other's kids and since I like Poseidon over Athena he is the one who retaliates to Athena. It's 60% because it is mostly indirect and I'm counting the Cyclops's as well as demigods so only about 10% is directly by Athena or her kids and like 4% of them is due to Aphrodite meddling the other 6% was between friends and acquaintances. (in my world any way)

*8 Poseidon became Neptune but Neptune didn't become Poseidon so it's understandable that before he became Neptune he learnt some roman (I doubt they changed instantly). The romans were all about order and war and Neptune didn't get anything near the amount of respect Poseidon did and as 'the sea doesn't like to be restrained' and is un ordered so in my mind Neptune is just Poseidon but more irritable due to lack of respect and being Romanised.

*9 the way I see it with Cyclops is that they're either Gaea's Cyclops who all eat demigods and then there's Poseidon's Cyclops' who live on the street and either they attack people like Polyphemus or they learn to cherish what they have and make things with what they have before working for Poseidon like Tyson

*10 Heracles was known for being hated by Hera and he was put in a cot with a snake to see if he was the demigod child of Zeus (Zeus raped his mother the husband of which wanted to know which child was his) Hera then kept coming up with impossible labours to try and kill him needless to say he didn't die till much late. If you haven't guessed I've been hinting at HoO


	4. Food never used to be this fun

**NO P.O.V**

Since the demigods had appeared in the middle of the solstice there were still subjects to discuss that had been neglected and forgotten during the chaos, realising this Zeus declared that the demigods should get something to eat and then some sleep, this caused the demigods to realise how hungry and tired the actually were.

Nico looked ready to pass out then and there, he had after all been shadow travelling a lot lately and his liberated dinner apparently hadn't been sent back with him, 'oh how i moun you' he thought staring sadly at his hand.

Thalia seemed to be the most awake out of all of them and she'd eaten before her hunt. Percy however became hungry at the mere mention of food, absently thinking that the camp fire had been hours earlier and he was in fact tired, what with staying up and with Tyson leaving, so they agreed (as if they had a choice) as long as they had lots and lots of food, because Percy has a bottomless pit for a stomach (seriously where does all that food go!) and the other two wanted to eat as well, and could either share a room and/or have close rooms so they could stick together (do you know how big Olympus is?).

And so the demigods were lead to two large but comfortable light blue and green guest rooms by Hermes, one for Thalia and one for the boys before the God flashed away with a sly grin, leaving behind three trays heaping with food, the first tray had anything from burgers to BBQ to roast, the second tray had bowls of pasta and salad and chips while the last tray had ice creams, rice pudding, cake, fruit and magic cups (speak what you want into them to receive it) for drinks.

"Percy, you're drooling." Thalia stated bluntly, Nico snickered as Percy wiped his mouth and moved towards the food as if in a trance and started eating, Nico soon following his example.

"So," Nico said as he swallowed his last chunk of food, "what do you think about this whole reading thing?" Percy shrugged and said

"I don't like the fact that were essentially reading my thoughts, I'm not proud of everything that I've ever done or thought and I don't particularly want to have people finding out about them… but were spending time with our dads so some good comes along with it ." while Thalia just stated,

"Blackmail."

"You do know that we'll be in the books sooner or later are you not bothered by anything you've done or said around Percy? I sure am." Nico asked now that the food was finished (it disappeared once they were full)

"It's okay Nico" Percy said rolling his eyes

"Nope"

"Oh, really miss daughter of Zeus" Percy stated then randomly said "eagles like to fly and goats like goat trails*1." This made no sense to Nico but apparently did to Thalia as she paled and shifted slightly suddenly uncomfortable with the topic. They soon separated and went to sleep.

Line

Meanwhile the meeting in the throne room absconded and everyone bar the big three left promising to return for more reading the next day.

"So, you don't kill my child I don't kill yours?" Poseidon asked the room lightly, Hades looked contemplatively at his brother who raised an eyebrow knowingly before turning to Zeus who asked,

"What if he irritates me? Can I kill him then?"

"Hades and i will be laughing at you and no you can't kill him, even if he irritates you. That goes for both of you." He stated calmly, "I want both of you to agree and I'll return the favour"

Zeus sighed but agreed not to harm the demigods as Hades confirmed the same with a sharp nod.

"Since we're agreeing not to kill the kids I feel that this is a good time to tell you that I know who Nico's father is." Hades stated prompting Poseidon to tighten his grip on his trident warily looking at Zeus who narrowed his eyes, suspicious.

"And pray tell brother, who is his father?" Zeus stated

"Nico and Bianca Di Angelo were born in the late 1930's and are incidentally the kids whom you tried to kill in front of me. Thanks for that brother" Hades scowled darkly as Poseidon's eyes widened in realisation and joined his brother in glaring at their youngest.

"So he is yours." Zeus scowled suddenly realising Poseidon had just tricked him into not harming the son of Hades and that he obviously knew before hand from his lack of reaction, Hades nodded sharply, "I will not harm him but he should have been dead decades ago, even if I hadn't had him killed, so how is he only 13 now?" he asked pointedly a scowl on his face

"I believe it has something to do with the, Lotus hotel and casino, as it's the most child friendly monster area, especially for males. It couldn't be the sea of monsters or anything similar, so the Lotus garden, then add in that its close to the underworld and that most of what goes in doesn't come out it's the perfect place to hide a demigod and not have to deal with them aging. My and Hades' realm would be a good place to hide our children but they'll want to leave sooner or later and their potential could be wasted better to slow their aging and bring them out when it's safe. Am I right?" Poseidon mused

Hades nodded impressed despite himself, "You've been thinking about that a lot haven't you." Poseidon nodded sadly, "I however don't know why Nico isn't with his sister, nor why I've gotten him out as far as I can tell he participated in the great prophecy but Jackson was the one the Prophecy is about otherwise we wouldn't be reading the books about him, it would be about Thalia or my son."

"Obviously the demigods are on good terms with future us from their lack of fear or nervousness so, I'll keep to my promise and not attack them, but, if I feel they are too great a danger for us I will not stop anyone else from doing so themselves, that'll be up to you until I feel I can trust them." And with that said Zeus flashed out of the room leaving behind the distinct smell of ozone.

Both brothers looked at each other and set off towards the demigod's rooms in silence as they passed they could sense Zeus in Thalia's room but ignored it in favour of watching their children sleep. Poseidon frowned at Percy seeing his dream (of Peacocks and Romans, Wolves and Neptune) thinking it didn't make sense but it brought a feeling of unease.

"I'm sorry." Poseidon said softly, Hades looked sharply at him confused, "after the war I should've been there to stop him or at least warn you." Hades sighed and said,

"It's not your fault you didn't know and I doubt were told about it besides you were distracted by the deaths of 3 of your 4 children. I don't blame you."

"Yes, but my child is still alive*2 and to find out that yours were almost killed…" Poseidon trailed of looking moving towards his son as Hades did the same but kept his distance none the less, he's bad at feelings.

"Do you want him to die?"

"Well, no. Of course not but to let my child live and not yours! If it happened in front of you must have been in the same room as Zeus' bolt and you haven't mentioned the mother being alive I can imagine it happening if that was me I'd probably have attacked him. It is one thing to kill our children, it's another to do it in-front of us, makes us think he doesn't respect us. Adds insult to injury." Poseidon said as he sat on the edge of Percy's bed looking intently at his tense features before sending him dreams of Atlantis his features relaxed and took on a more interested expression

Hades sighed and said "Winston Churchill was older than 16 so wasn't a candidate and he wasn't all that powerful compared to other kids of yours, so he wasn't his normal trigger happy paranoid self and Maria. Maria is now in Elysium so she is all right now any way. Don't blame yourself for something you didn't do you've got plenty to blame yourself for without doing so." Poseidon raised an eyebrow and said in a bland voice,

"Thanks." The room descended into a comfortable silence the only noise coming from Percy shifting on the bed and Nico's arm moving up to his pillow, before,

"Apollo's Oracle."

"What?" asked Hades

"You cursed the Oracle." Poseidon accused

"Yep, but some thing's telling me it will be mentioned and explained in the book sooner or later. No point saying it now"

"Hmmm." Poseidon hummed, they felt their brothers presence leave next store and took it as their cue to leave so with one last look at their children they flashed out, one to the Underworld the other to East One-hundred-and-fourth and First.

LINE

5 year old Percy was sprawled across his bed, dreaming of a herd of horses splashing through the shallows of the ocean, a few Hippocampi joining in with the fun, but swimming in their case, giggling every now and then. His father was crouched next to him with a soft smile having been the one to give his son the dream.

He frowned at the state of the room there were magazines that a 5 year old shouldn't be subjected to and ones that he definitely wouldn't be interested in, there were empty cans and bottles of alcohol scattered on the floor, dirty clothes were hanging of the table and lamp none of which were a child's and the room smelt foul and had unidentified stains probably food and alcohol on any and all surfaces. He felt a surge of anger but fought it back down; it wouldn't do to kill _Gabriel_ before his usefulness was over.

Poseidon stroked the hair out of his sons face before leaning forward to nuzzle*3 his face before kissing him softly on the forehead. Percy giggled again causing Poseidon to laugh softly before rising to his full height and striding towards the door.

As he walked into Sally and _Smelly Gabe's _room he was hit with a powerful Oder which would have made him choke if he wasn't a God. Sally and Gabe were sharing a bed however Sally seemed to be as far from him as possible without falling of the bed in a position, he knew, she was uncomfortable with as he knew she liked to stretch out yet she was curled in a small ball. He took a sharp breath as he noticed the fading bruise on the side of her face and had to contain a growl before he could impale _Gabe _in his anger that increased every day since hehad been found.

Deciding to act on some of his anger he thought of not what he'd like to do to him but what the ocean could do to him he grinned, vindictively, there was a reason he was one of the most feared gods both in Rome and Greece. If you wanted to live you didn't offend him. He pushed thoughts of shark attacks, drowning's, fish being hunted, sting ray stings and many more into _Gabe's_ mind, he then replaced _Gabe's_ perspective to the victims. Instantly he started thrashing and for a moment Poseidon watched, smiling darkly, before restricting _Gabe's_ presence to his mind so he couldn't move and hurt Sally or wake her up. _Gabe_ would feel the pain and panic but would show no outward signs; sadly he couldn't do it every night just a few times a month 'I don't want him getting violent with Percy and Sally' and with that, while gazing calmly at Sally, Poseidon set Sally up for a pay rise.

Glancing out the window he could see his nephew Apollo's Chariot looming over the horizon and so figuring he had about two more hours to kill, left for Atlantis, replacing the vile scent in the apartment with that of an Ocean breeze. In his bedroom Percy sighed contentedly.

Line

"RISE AND SHINE CUSINS!" with this shout Nico and Percy were subjected to an blindingly glowing Apollo, their response to this was practised, from the amount of times Thalia had done something similar to wake them up (which is better? To be almost blinded upon waking or to be shocked with high voltage electricity?), as if in sync the both groaned and threw a pillow at the intruder causing him to laugh and throw the sheets off them before grabbing them by their ankles and yanking them out of bed.

Grumbling they got up and glared at Thalia who was laughing from the door as Apollo said,

"Since the Olympians agreed to reading the book today they wanted to finish more of the book than we did yesterday. So I was assigned to wake you up before driving my chariot so you've got about three hours, before we start at 8:00, to get dressed, have a shower and eat breakfast. Afterwards you can go back to sleep as long as you're out of bed, so sleep in kitchen if you're going to and… I've got to go, so see you later." And he in all of his Godly glory ran out of the door and almost skidded into the wall at the first corner.

"You should have seen your faces." Thalia snickered

"Kodak I'm sure." Nico groaned, "Are we going to get woken up like that all the time?"

"Gods I hope not." Thalia groaned

"How long have you been up?" Percy asked

"Not long, I got woken up like you two did. Apollo hung a bunch of water balloons above my head then shouted 'wake up little sis the suns arising' then shot the balloons with his bow so I was soaking. Good job he didn't do that from next to me otherwise I would have shot him" she muttered

"Huh, I would have thought you would have shouted at him you shout at us when we do that." Nico said

"Oh I did. I knew he wasn't you guys from the shout but I still shouted at him. You both sleep like medusa victims I only let him off because he dried me off and then told me he was about to wake you two up and I knew it was something I had to see." She answered

"Right, we'll get washed and changed and then meet in the hallway yeah?" Percy asked

Agreeing to this they separated.

line

After wandering around for about half an hour they eventually found the kitchen were they found them-selves eating cereal and fruit to the delight of Demeter, who was waiting to ambush them, even if Nico seemed to have a vendetta against the cereal with how aggressively he was eating it.

After Demeter left they found that they had nothing to do. Now, there is only so long a teenager with ADHD can sit in a room without doing anything no matter how interesting the godly kitchen was, with its tall pillars and gold furnishing, but it was still only a kitchen and none of them were particularly interested in architecture no matter how many lecture from Annabeth they get about it, so they soon found them -elves bored and alone with lots of cereal and lots of fruit. So naturally a food eating contest had to occur.

The big three gods heard cheering coming from the kitchen and decided that there would be the most likely place for their children to be. As they walked into the kitchen they found Apollo, Hermes and Ares cheering, Dionysus looking mildly interested in what was going on, Hephaestus looking curious but otherwise more interested in whatever he was fiddling with and Demeter looking disgusted. Striding closer they found Nico curled up on his chair looking as if he'd recently been Ill, but cheering none the less, next to a half empty bowl of fruit and cereal.

"What's going on?" Hades asked curious as to what would make his son and Demeter look like that.

"The brats are seeing who can eat the most before they puke." Ares harshly answered, the big three looked at each other looking a mix between amused, concerned and interested.

"Nico got knocked out about 5 minutes ago but Percy and Thalia are slowing down." Apollo added as Hades walked behind Nico and raised his eyebrows at the food they were eating now understanding why Demeter looked so disgusted and Poseidon and Zeus stepped closer to see their children shovelling cereal and fruit into their mouths a faint sheen of sweat on their faces.

"How did this start?" Poseidon queried, conjuring some glasses of pure water for the kids who glanced gratefully at him but didn't touch it just yet (as it would be cheating for Percy), well Nico sipped at his.

"Apparently you shouldn't leave ADHD stricken and competitive demigods alone with nothing to do and refillable bowls of food or in this case cereal," Hermes said, "my and Apollo's money's on Percy, Ares is on Thalia. If Percy wins I get money for him winning and getting the order right, Ares thought that Nico would last longer until 2nd place. Any of you guys want to bet?"

"No, we are not juveniles; we don't need to bet on anything and everything that happens." Zeus stated

"But if we were I'd bet 10 drachmas on Percy winning." Poseidon grinned at Hermes who returned it, Hades smirked as Zeus scowled.

Suddenly Thalia stopped and clutching her stomach started dry heaving, Percy grinned as his supporters gathered their winnings before also starting to dry heave. Poseidon grinned, sympathetic, but amused and changed Percy's water into sea water which Percy gratefully drank before tipping it over his head and feeling much better almost instantly but could still barely move.

Once the kids had drank their water their parents, well Nico had recovered enough to feel almost perfectly fine, helped them into the throne room and Poseidon created more glasses of cool water for them before the rest of the gods turned up and the reading commenced.

*1 Percy found out that Thalia was afraid of heights and so stopped the group from going down Grover's goat trail on her behalf in the titans curse

*2 Winston Churchill according to Wikipedia died in 2010 this is in the 1990's when Thalia became a tree

*3 I like to think that because Poseidon is the father of Horses he will act similar to a horse sometimes especially when he is relaxed and with a lover or offspring of his (nuzzle is like the animal equivalent of a hug they rub their face on the others)


	5. Toro! Toro! Barnyard Brawls

Zeus glared harshly at Nico, who shifted uncomfortably, before he sighed and ordered Demeter to read on

My Mom Teaches Me Bullfighting

"That doesn't sound too good." Demeter commented glancing at the still queasy demigods

"It isn't" Percy grunted while Ares leant forward in anticipation

We tore through the night along dark country roads. Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the windshield. I didn't know how my mom could see anything, but she kept her foot on the gas.

"She's probably scoped the area out before hand in case of an emergency and if Salt Water over there has a brain, he'd have tried to convince her to take you there over the years," Poseidon nodded, he'd left notes and spoken to her a few times, teaching her about the Greek world and the camps location so that his son could be as safe as possible if Sally decided to change her mind and take him to camp for reasons such as this, "so I'm assuming that she'd have changed her mind several times and have driven past to try and make a decision." Athena continued

Every time there was a flash of lightning, I looked at Grover sitting next to me in the backseat and I wondered if I'd gone insane,

"You've always been insane Fish Breath." Thalia commented causing Percy to roll his eyes and Nico to smirk

or if he was wearing some kind of shag-carpet pants.

"You know I'm sure you can probably buy them on the internet." Nico commented Thalia snorted and Percy's angry frown twitched momentarily,

"You can buy anything on the internet," Hermes said then muttered, "let me tell you the weird things I've had to deliver."

But, no, the smell was one I remembered from kindergarten field trips to the petting zoo— lanolin, like from wool. The smell of a wet barnyard animal.

"Grover will love that." Thalia snickered

All I could think to say was, "So, you and my mom... know each other?"

"Smooth" Apollo snorted grinning with Hermes

Graver's eyes flitted to the rear view mirror, though there were no cars behind us. "Not exactly," he said. "I mean, we've never met in person. But she knew I was watching you."

"Stalker." Apollo coughed

"Watching me?"

"Keeping tabs on you. Making sure you were okay. But I wasn't faking being your friend," he added hastily. "I am your friend."

"Urn ... what are you, exactly?"

"That doesn't matter right now."

"You certainly pick your times well, Perce." Nico stated

"This is coming from you?" Percy raised an eyebrow at him causing him to blush and Thalia to snicker

"It doesn't matter? From the waist down, my best friend is a donkey—"

Grover let out a sharp, throaty "Blaa-ha-ha!"

I'd heard him make that sound before, but I'd always assumed it was a nervous laugh. Now I realized it was more of an irritated bleat.

"Goat!" he cried.

"What?"

"I'm a goat from the waist down."

"You just said it didn't matter."

"Your right, he did." Apollo stated causing many eye rolls and glares

"Blaa-ha-ha! There are satyrs who would trample you under-hoof for such an insult!"

"But, didn't he just say it didn't matter?" Hermes added (un)helpfully

"Were those old ladies at the fruit stand a myth, Percy? Was Mrs. Dodds a myth?"

"Depends whom you ask though doesn't it? If you ask a demigod they'll give you a different answer than a mortal." Yet again Apollo answered. Artemus absentmindedly shot an arrow next to his foot as a warning, causing him to shift so he'd be cross legged on his throne, Zeus' eye twitched while Poseidon looked on fondly

"So you admit there was a Mrs. Dodds!"

"Of course."

"Then why—"

"The less you knew, the fewer monsters you'd attract," Grover said, like that should be perfectly obvious. "We put Mist over the humans' eyes. We hoped you'd think the Kindly One was a hallucination. But it was no good. You started to realize who you are."

"No thanks to the stupid satyr." Zeus stated, Dionysus, Hermes, Thalia and Percy scowled at him

"Who I—wait a minute, what do you mean?"

The weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail.

"Percy," my mom said, "there's too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get you to safety."

"Safety from what? Who's after me?"

"Oh, nobody much," Grover said, obviously still miffed about the donkey comment. "Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions."

"You know, if people actually answered my questions properly when I asked them my life would be much less stressful." Percy said mildly

"Yeah, I hate it when no-one answers my questions. Then later we get embarrassed or in trouble for not knowing about it earlier, either because everyone else knows about it or the information would be very helpful in defeating a monster." Thalia replied. Nico hummed and said,

"It happens to Percy more often than us though." Poseidon frowned worried and Percy scowled, "for some reason people tell us about the problem and leave Percy to figure it out on his own. But then again everyone trusts Percy with personal secrets but not vital information. How does that work?" Nico frowned, Thalia shrugged

"At least you two tell me." Percy sighed

"Why does no-one answer your questions?" Poseidon asked, Percy shrugged, "Do I answer them?"

"Usually, but when it's a situation that involves you, you usually tell me what you can, in the time we have, before telling me to ask Chiron about something, so I actually do find out about things. Anything else I find out in a dream or figure it out myself."

"Grover!"

"Sorry, Mrs. Jackson. Could you drive faster, please?"

"Surely that's dangerous she already cannot see" Demeter asked concerned

"It's a choice between dangerous driving and fighting a monster with a scared satyr and an untrained demigod." Hermes said seriously Poseidon's eyes darkened considerably

I tried to wrap my mind around what was happening, but I couldn't do it. I knew this wasn't a dream. I had no imagination.

Thalia snorted and shook her head

I could never dream up something this weird. My mom made a hard left. We swerved onto a narrower road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES signs on white picket fences.

"Who would plant a strawberry farm in a wooded area?" Nico asked, "I mean I know it hides the camp but should it not be black berries or something?"

"Why is it only strawberries we plant we could plant other berries as-well? Sell a wider range so more people will buy maybe" Percy asked

"That's a good idea" Demeter enthused excited, Hades scowled with Nico who elbowed Percy in the stomach, Painfully.*

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"The summer camp I told you about." My mother's voice was tight; she was trying for my sake not to be scared. "The place your father wanted to send you."

"The place you didn't want me to go."

"Please, dear," my mother begged. "This is hard enough. Try to understand. You're in danger."

"No-one answered my question again." Percy muttered (well it sort of is a question if you think about it, 'why did you suddenly decide to send me here when an hour ago you wouldn't' or 'why did he want me there?' etc.)

"Because some old ladies cut yarn."

"Those weren't old ladies," Grover said. "Those were the Fates. Do you know what it means—the fact they appeared in front of you? They only do that when you're about to ... when someone's about to die."

"Whoa. You said 'you.'"

"No I didn't. I said 'someone.'"

"You meant 'you.' As in me. "

"I meant you, like 'someone.' Not you, you. "

"Boys!" my mom said.

"At least the lady knows how to handle a boy" Artemus stated, most of the gods rolled their eyes

She pulled the wheel hard to the right, and I got a glimpse of a figure she'd swerved to avoid—a dark fluttering shape now lost behind us in the storm.

"What was that?" I asked.

"We're almost there," my mother said, ignoring my question. "Another mile. Please. Please. Please."

I didn't know where there was, but I found myself leaning forward in the car, anticipating, wanting us to arrive.

Outside, nothing but rain and darkness—the kind of empty countryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island. I thought about Mrs. Dodds and the moment when she'd changed into the thing with pointed teeth and leathery wings. My limbs went numb from delayed shock. She really hadn't been human. She'd meant to kill me.

"Delayed shock" Thalia snorted, "It only took seven months to dawn on you, I don't think that's delayed at all Barnacle Breath"

"Oh, shut up, Lightning Rod" Percy sniped

"No, you shut up Shrimpy."

"Why don't you shove that bow up your –"

"Oi, this can go on all week so could you both shut before someone, namely me makes you!" Nico snapped, surprisingly they both just shrugged grinning and relaxed back into their seats ready to listen

Then I thought about Mr. Brunner ... and the sword he had thrown me. Before I could ask Grover about that, the hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling boom! and our car exploded.

"Please tell me that wasn't what I think it is, Zeus." Poseidon stated in deadly calm voice causing many to become wary, there is a reason Poseidon was one of the most feared gods.

I remember feeling weightless, like I was being crushed, fried, and hosed down all at the same time.

Poseidon's eyes darkened angrily, his expression unreadable

I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver's seat and said, "Ow."

"Percy!" my mom shouted.

"I'm okay..."

I tried to shake off the daze. I wasn't dead. The car hadn't really exploded. We'd swerved into a ditch.

"Good." Poseidon stated eerily calm

Our driver's-side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in.

Lightning.

"Really, that's nice to know Zeus." Poseidon said conversely, "did you know that every living thing contains water, which incidentally _I_ can control. Did you also know that the air contains water particles too and that I know what happens to every single drop of water, I just ignore most of what I know because it can be frightfully distracting and boring, if I were to think about it I'm sure I could find anything or anyone in a matter of minutes." He let that sink in,

"So thinking like that, ignoring the fact that I'm a god, I can, if I focus, find what you were hiding with Thalia." Here Poseidon's eyes unfocused for a second evidently finding what Zeus kept visiting, "I doubt she even knows most of it. In fact the ancient rules forbid her from knowing. *3 Do you really want me to make his life difficult? Hera's already going to, not to mention Hades when he finds out. I won't kill him nor will I send monsters after him but I won't help him either." Thalia paled wondering if he was talking about Jason, while everyone especially Hades studied the quiet Zeus critically both curious about what he's hiding and nervous as to which rule that had been broken

"Not unless he proves himself to me. So, try that again in this time and I'll see what I can do. And since Percy as of yet doesn't know I exist I can help him both blatantly and subtly as long as he doesn't know," his voice hardened, flawlessly going from eerily pleasant to dangerous. "So don't think I won't. And I'm sure I'm doing something in the future to prevent you from killing my son, the only way to do so yourself that prevents me from doing anything to counter was if the majority of the council agreed willingly, as otherwise I'm sure they'd warn me in some subtle way, and I'd try to find a way to prevent it. I also doubt Percy would go away easily and you'd earn my ire which as you know is not a good thing. So I dare you, try it again."*1 Poseidon finished pleasantly. Zeus gritted his teeth, as everyone stared quietly at the two brothers, before commanding Demeter to read on.

That was the only explanation. We'd been blasted right off the road. Next to me in the backseat was a big motionless lump. "Grover!"

The demi gods Nico and Thalia frowned, worried in the tense room

He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth.

"I know I'm not an expert but isn't blood coming out the mouth a really bad thing?" Nico asked

"Not really unless you're vomiting blood or a lot is coming out of your mouth, trickling from the mouth generally means you've violently lost a tooth or more, you've bit your tongue or you've split your mouth open in which case it won't kill you but you should make sure that you clean the wound rigorously before you stitch it." Apollo replied

I shook his furry hip, thinking, No! Even if you are half barnyard animal, you're my best friend and I don't want you to die!

"Aww, that's so sweet!" Aphrodite squealed

Then he groaned "Food," and I knew there was hope.

"So dramatic" Thalia muttered (don't know why but when he said 'and I knew there was hope.' I could see Percy standing in-front of a sunset in a dramatic pose looking into the distance and I could hear it in a deeper voice)

"Percy," my mother said, "we have to ..." Her voice faltered. I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure lumbering toward us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made my skin crawl. It was a dark silhouette of a huge guy, like a football player. He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head.

"Why would he do that? Surely it would get soggy." Apollo commented airily humour glinting in his eyes, Percy blushed and Poseidon huffed a small laugh

His top half was bulky and fuzzy. His upraised hands made it look like he had horns.

Poseidon frowned

I swallowed hard. "Who is—"

"Percy," my mother said, deadly serious. "Get out of the car." My mother threw herself against the driver's-side door. It was jammed shut in the mud. I tried mine. Stuck too. I looked up desperately at the hole in the roof. It might've been an exit, but the edges were sizzling and smoking.

Thalia and Nico swallowed, pale in the light of the fire

"Climb out the passenger's side!" my mother told me. "Percy—you have to run. Do you see that big tree?"

"Oh look it's me" Thalia muttered almost bitterly

"Don't worry Thal's; we'll get you home soon." Percy said patting her back with a straight face; Thalia sighed and smiled at him,

"Thanks." A pause, "Wait." Nico eyes widened and he struggled to keep a straight face, "HEY!" she shouted Percy grinned and saluted her before throwing himself of his seat to avoid the high voltage electricity aimed at him

"What just happened?" Hades asked as Percy rolled out of the way of another shot of electricity

"Percy just made a joke about how we'll get Thalia home to her tree soon." Nico said trying not to laugh or else he'd be avoiding lightning as well

"So?" Hermes asked as Percy did an impressive back flip to get himself onto his feet narrowly avoiding getting hit

"Well since Thalia died to get into the tree in the first place she'd have to die to get back in so Perce basically just said we'll kill you soon and Thalia took comfort from it before she realised what he said." Nico explained as Percy, grinning, twirled away from a bolt of lightning (Thalia's shots had steadily been getting stronger in her ire and Percy's strange sense of fun)

"WHAT!" Zeus bellowed Poseidon who was carefully watching Percy dodge lightning with worryingly practised skill 'how many times has he had to dodge lightning?' answered

"He was joking Zeus if you can't tell the difference between a joke and threat no wonder your so paranoid."

Seemingly placated Zeus muttered, "I'm not paranoid" Percy suddenly changed tactics and charged towards Thalia who startled out of her ire (or rather fake ire by now, this was an excellent way to get rid of tension). He flipped over her and landed then flipped off of her shoulders and into a crouch on the floor, Thalia immediately found herself soaking wet. And Nico who could no longer contain his laughter found himself hit with lightning and groaning on his slightly charred seat. Poseidon grinned at his son and as Thalia started sparking said,

"Alright, alright, calm down we should continue reading. Frankly I want to find out what is going to happen to my son, Thalia stop throwing volts about and Percy dry her of once she does so." He said amused

"Aye, aye, Captain." Percy snickered as he stood to attention and saluted to his dad who smirked back as he rolled his eyes amused. Thalia reluctantly stopped sparking and Percy dried her off as they settled back on the seats.

"What?"

"That big tree Percy. It's like a really big plant usually has green leaves or needles and generally has brown -" Apollo explained

"I know what a tree is!" Percy interrupted

"Ooh touchy" Apollo snickered with Hermes

Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas tree-sized pine at the crest of the nearest hill.

"That's the property line," my mom said. "Get over that hill and you'll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don't look back. Yell for help. Don't stop until you reach the door."

"Mom, you're coming too."

Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.

"She'd need to be invited into the property and there isn't anyone there who knows how to invite her in." Athena explained Poseidon rolled his eyes at her.

"No!" I shouted. "You are coming with me. Help me carry Grover."

"He doesn't want us," my mother told me. "He wants you. Besides, I can't cross the property line."

"But..."

"We don't have time, Percy. Go. Please."

"Nah, Percy's too noble for his own good he won't leave her." Thalia said

I got mad, then—mad at my mother,

"You should not be mad at her she's doing what she believes is best" Hera chided, Hephaestus grumbled at her

at Grover the goat,

"No! Don't blame the goat." Thalia exclaimed

at the thing with horns that was lumbering toward us slowly and deliberately like, like a bull.

"Well, it is part bull." Nico said so only his cousins could hear

I climbed across Grover and pushed the door open into the rain. "We're going together. Come on, Mom."

"You're very loyal." Athena stated, thinking

"I told you—"

"Mom! I am not leaving you. Help me with Grover."

"Or stubborn" Demeter commented, "just like his father." she finished snidely. Poseidon smirked at her.

I didn't wait for her answer. I scrambled outside, dragging Grover from the car. He was surprisingly light, but I couldn't have carried him very far if my mom hadn't come to my aid.

"Wool gets very heavy when wet." Thalia commented

Together, we draped Grover's arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through wet waist-high grass.

"Why is it waist high?" Apollo asked, "Surely it should be shorter so as not to impede the demigods?"

"It slows down a lot of monsters as well and some of the demigods can control the grass." Dionysus commented from where he was lounging on his throne pulling of looking drunk for someone so sober, "Also if the demigod bothered to look they'd notice a lot of trampled grass that doubles as a smoother path from all the brats walking up it. It's also waist high because it's the beginning of summer grass tends to get tall around then, idiot." Apollo scowled at him but nodded in understanding

Thalia leaned towards her cousins, "I thought it was to siphon us of so he'd have less of us to complain about." Percy and Nico nodded in agreement

"It still could be." Nico answered Percy hummed

"I don't think it wise to say so in front of the parents though, do you?"

"Ooh, since when are you wise in front of the gods Sushi?" Thalia snickered before Percy could retaliate Demeter continued reading

Glancing back, I got my first clear look at the monster. He was seven feet tall, easy, his arms and legs like something from the cover of Muscle Man magazine

"Why do you know what the cover of muscle man magazine looks like, Percy?" Hermes commented. Percy didn't dignify that with a response

—bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other 'ceps,

Apollo*3 and Athena snorted, one in disdain and the other in amusement (guess which was who)

all stuffed like baseballs under vein-webbed skin. He wore no clothes

"What!" Thalia and Nico screeched, Hermes and Apollo snorted at their faces which were wide eyed in horror others just looked on amused like Percy and Poseidon or like Artemus and Athena a little disgusted

except underwear—

The demigods let out a sigh of relief though still looked confused

"I'm glad he had his armour on the next time I fought him." Percy commented idly

I mean, bright white Fruit of the Looms—

The gods just raised an amused eyebrow while the more immature gods laughed

which would've looked funny, except that the top half of his body was so scary. Coarse brown hair started at about his belly button and got thicker as it reached his shoulders.

Poseidon's eyes widened, "Ahh, him." He muttered Athena scowled how Poseidon of all gods could figure it out before her he must be connected to it

His neck was a mass of muscle and fur leading up to his enormous head, which had a snout as long as my arm, snotty nostrils with a gleaming brass ring,

Athena's eyes widened

cruel black eyes, and horns—enormous black-and-white horns with points you just couldn't get from an electric sharpener.

Now everyone else's eyes widened

I recognized the monster, all right. He had been in one of the first stories Mr. Brunner told us. But he couldn't be real.

I blinked the rain out of my eyes. "That's—"

"Pasiphae's son," my mother said.

"Well, Uncle goes all out when he creates a monster." Apollo said

"Wait _**you**_ created the Minotaur?" Thalia asked

"Yes, wish I didn't though it seems to me that a lot of my children end up fighting it first Theseus, now Percy." Poseidon said

"Why did you create it?" Nico asked

"Uncle dear is very temperamental, he gave his support to Pasiphae's husband, king Minos," Nico paled and Percy clasped his shoulder in comfort, "in the form of a bull that was to be sacrificed back to him but he liked the cow so swapped it with another hoping uncle wouldn't notice, thus insulting and angering Poseidon who asked me to make the kings pride and joy, Pasiphae, fall in love with the Cretan Bull and the minotaur is the result of that union. Ashamed of what had happened Minos asked Daedalus," Athena glared at nothing in particular, "to put the Minotaur in his labyrinth and you know the rest I'm sure." Surprisingly Aphrodite said *4

"It was more to shame Minos and Pasiphae than anything else; I didn't really think that far ahead, it was a spontaneous decision." Poseidon admitted

"I wish I'd known how badly they want to kill you."

"But he's the Min—"

"Don't say his name," she warned. "Names have power."

"You still rarely remember that." Thalia teased

The pine tree was still way too far—a hundred yards uphill at least.

I glanced behind me again.

The bull-man hunched over our car, looking in the windows—or not looking, exactly. More like snuffling, nuzzling. I wasn't sure why he bothered, since we were only about fifty feet away.

"Food?" Grover moaned.

"Shhh," I told him. "Mom, what's he doing? Doesn't he see us?"

"He needs glasses and has bad ears." Apollo said before Athena could explain

"His sight and hearing are terrible," she said. "He goes by smell. But he'll figure out where we are soon enough."

As if on cue, the bull-man bellowed in rage. He picked up Gabe's Camaro by the torn roof, the chassis creaking and groaning. He raised the car over his head and threw it down the road. It slammed into the wet asphalt and skidded in a shower of sparks for about half a mile before coming to a stop. The gas tank exploded.

"Yay! Take that Gabe" Thalia and Nico cheered making Percy smile

Not a scratch, I remembered Gabe saying.

Apollo Hermes, Thalia and Nico snickered

Oops.

Now almost everyone was at least smiling

"Percy," my mom said. "When he sees us, he'll charge. Wait until the last second, then jump out of the way— directly sideways. He can't change directions very well once he's charging. Do you understand?"

"How do you know all this?"

"I've been worried about an attack for a long time. I should have expected this. I was selfish, keeping you near me."

"She wasn't selfish, but she could have explained better in the car or prepared you better like drop hints read Greek mythology etc." Hephaestus grunted

"Keeping me near you? But—"

"How did she keep you near her if she only saw you in the summer?" Hades asked

Another bellow of rage, and the bull-man started tromping uphill.

He'd smelled us.

Poseidon sighed "Great."

The pine tree was only a few more yards, but the hill was getting steeper and slicker, and Grover wasn't getting any lighter.

The bull-man closed in. Another few seconds and he'd be on top of us. My mother must've been exhausted, but she shouldered Grover. "Go, Percy! Separate! Remember what I said."

I didn't want to split up, but I had the feeling she was right—

"Your feelings are usually accurate." Thalia said

it was our only chance. I sprinted to the left, turned, and saw the creature bearing down on me. His black eyes glowed with hate.

"Why would he hate Percy surely he should like him at least a bit for you know his dad creating him, it usually gains us a favour when that happens." Nico asked

"He loved his mother and disliked what she went through and Theseus was the first demigod to kill him and since he was my son," Poseidon said, "I've got no favour from him."

He reeked like rotten meat.

"If he is still alive and has no skin disorder why does he smell rotten?" Nico asked

"He'll have bits of demigod that he's eaten over the millennia in his fur." Apollo answered automatically, scrunching his nose

He lowered his head and charged, those razor-sharp horns aimed straight at my chest.

The fear in my stomach made me want to bolt, but that wouldn't work. I could never outrun this thing. So I held my ground, and at the last moment, I jumped to the side.

Poseidon's lips twitched into a smile

The bull-man stormed past like a freight train, then bellowed with frustration and turned, but not toward me this time, toward my mother, who was setting Grover down in the grass.

Ares grinned finally enjoying the chapter taking in all the action he could

We'd reached the crest of the hill. Down the other side I could see a valley, just as my mother had said, and the lights of a farmhouse glowing yellow through the rain. But that was half a mile away. We'd never make it.

"You could maybe if Tyche was on your side and you didn't run in a straight line." Hermes said

"Ignoring the fact that the boundary keeps monsters out, you'd have to distract him and hide the satyr in the grass or on a tree, then whomever hid the satyr would gain the bulls attention and the other would have to run to the farm and get someone, probably best to get an archer that way you don't have to get as close to help the one who stayed behind." Athena summerised

"Yeah but what if you didn't know that there were weapons that could kill the bull there." Percy defended himself, "But I would have known otherwise if someone had answered my questions properly in the car." Athena opened her mouth to reply when Nico said,

"Imagine if a mortal was getting chased towards camp or near a demigod by a hellhound or something but they saw it as a bear or wolf and then one of us killed it but the mortal turned out to be a very passionate animal rights activator and we got stuck with them ranting about its rights to life or arresting us. What would happen?" Nico asked Apollo and Hermes snorted

"You'd use the mist of course" Athena replied as if he was an idiot

"But what if we didn't know how to use it." Percy queried

"You'd either have to have an escape attempt, nock the mortal out or even break out of wherever they took you or maybe if you're lucky any god who was watching, if they were any, might inform camp to send someone or get you out themselves if it's looking like your desperate or running out of time." Hermes replied in a tone that suggested he'd seen or helped in something similar but then again he is the god of thieves

The bull-man grunted, pawing the ground. He kept eyeing my mother, who was now retreating slowly downhill, back toward the road, trying to lead the monster away from Grover.

"She's brave" Artemus said appreciatively

"Run, Percy!" she told me. "I can't go any farther. Run!" But I just stood there, frozen in fear, as the monster charged her. She tried to sidestep, as she'd told me to do, but the monster had learned his lesson.

"if the monster has just learned its lesson about sidestepping then surely that would mean in a millennia no-one else's done the same and if so then how come?" Thalia asked

"It hasn't got a very good long term memory." Athena said, "However that being said it's happened enough times that its figuring it out quicker each time. Muscle memory see? That was what 3 minutes in a few hundred or more years it'll be down to 2 minutes, and it seems too remember who defeated it in the past so that's bad as well as it gets more aggressive and more likely to come back to re-challenge the demigod quickly"

"That's a nice thought." Thalia muttered Percy nodded

His hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck as she tried to get away. He lifted her as she struggled, kicking and pummelling the air.

"Poseidon's eyes widened and Nico and Thalia looked shocked and confused

"Mom!"

She caught my eyes, managed to choke out one last word: "Go!" Then, with an angry roar, the monster closed his fists around my mother's neck, and she dissolved before my eyes, melting into light, a shimmering golden form, as if she were a holographic projection. A blinding flash, and she was simply ... gone.

Most of the gods sighed in relief, "Ahh, see's ok she's jus' been taken by one of us probably one of your uncles laddie." Hephaestus grunted Aphrodite beamed at him as Poseidon scrutinised his brothers and the demigods relaxed

"No!"

Anger replaced my fear. Newfound strength burned in my limbs—the same rush of energy I'd gotten when Mrs. Dodds grew talons.

"Go Percy's fishy powers!" Nico cheered

The bull-man bore down on Grover, who lay helpless in the grass. The monster hunched over, snuffling my best friend, as if he were about to lift Grover up and make him dissolve too. I couldn't allow that.

"Oh, you mean business." Thalia said

"Never get in the way of an angry or determined Percy. It's terrifying." Nico seriously stated. Zeus and Hades frowned, a son of Hades afraid of his cousin who so far has shown no signs of aggressiveness and allowed himself to be almost hit by lightning to cheer up his other cousin, how was he scary?

"When did that happen?" Thalia asked, Nico looked down at his lap Percy rolled his eyes and stated,

"I said I forgave you Nico, it wasn't your fault so stop feeling guilty or I'll set Mrs. O' Leary onto you. C'mon smile" Nico's lips twitched, Percy lowered his head to look him in the eyes, "C'mon I know you want to, come on." He coaxed then Nico started laughing and Percy grinned gave him a one armed hug and said, "there see, no hard feelings, you had your reasons, you just didn't close the loop hole. Not. Your. Fault." He stated Thalia frowned at them but figured she'd ask later

I stripped off my red rain jacket.

"Hey!" I screamed, waving the jacket, running to one side of the monster. "Hey, stupid! Ground beef!"

"That's the best you can come up with?" Thalia asked dryly

"Raaaarrrrr!" The monster turned toward me, shaking his meaty fists. I had an idea—

"Oh no!" Thalia said

a stupid idea,

Then she and Nico gave a sigh of relief,

"Good your stupid ideas always work some-how it's the brilliant ideas that you've got to be wary of." Thalia stated, Percy pouted

but better than no idea at all. I put my back to the big pine tree and waved my red jacket in front of the bull-man, thinking I'd jump out of the way at the last moment.

But it didn't happen like that.

"Of course not, it wouldn't be fair if it did." Nico said

The bull-man charged too fast, his arms out to grab me whichever way I tried to dodge. Time slowed down.

My legs tensed. I couldn't jump sideways, so I leaped straight up, kicking off from the creature's head, using it as a springboard, turning in mid-air, and landing on his neck.

"Wow." Hermes said, wide eyed, "Not many of my kids can do something like that and they're some of the most athletic"

How did I do that? I didn't have time to figure it out. A millisecond later, the monster's head slammed into the tree and the impact nearly knocked my teeth out.

"Ouch" Apollo said rubbing his jaw

The bull-man staggered around, trying to shake me. I locked my arms around his horns to keep from being thrown. Thunder and lightning were still going strong. The rain was in my eyes.

"Why should that matter?" Nico said

"It doesn't but evidently Zeus didn't want me to see properly and as it was his rain I guess I couldn't." Percy said

The smell of rotten meat burned my nostrils.

The monster shook himself around and bucked like a rodeo bull.

"Should that matter? You can stay on a bucking horse easily why not a bull?" Nico asked

"It's different, I can stay on a bucking horse because it's instinct and when I ask them to buck they don't want to hurt me so they aren't really trying, but I need to practice for other creatures so I try to rely on skill rather than instinct. If I was on a rodeo bull, or stallion I guess, I'm pretty sure could stay on for a while now while back then I couldn't." Percy answered

He should have just backed up into the tree and smashed me flat, but I was starting to realize that this thing had only one gear: forward.

"Gee took you long enough." Athena said

Meanwhile, Grover started groaning in the grass. I wanted to yell at him to shut up, but the way I was getting tossed around, if I opened my mouth I'd bite my own tongue off.

Apollo and Poseidon cringed and Hermes muttered, "Yikes"

"Food!" Grover moaned.

The bull-man wheeled toward him, pawed the ground again, and got ready to charge. I thought about how he had squeezed the life out of my mother, made her disappear in a flash of light, and rage filled me like high-octane fuel.

Ares got a creepy grin on his face

I got both hands around one horn and I pulled backward with all my might.

"Not gonna happen kid." Ares said Poseidon raised an eyebrow

The monster tensed, gave a surprised grunt, then— snap!

Poseidon grinned and said, "Not going to happen eh, Ares? His anger combined with his adrenaline and the rain makes this perfectly feasible"

"Oh shut up Hurricane Head." Ares sniped

"'Hurricane Head'? Really? You're just upset your son couldn't do that the last time he reformed." Poseidon smirked Ares just sneered at him

The bull-man screamed and flung me through the air. I landed flat on my back in the grass. My head smacked against a rock.

"Oh that's bad, you could be winded, have broken bones and you've defiantly got a concussion. I don't think you need me to say that in a fight they're bad to have" Apollo said

When I sat up, my vision was blurry, but I had a horn in my hands, a ragged bone weapon the size of a knife.

Poseidon gave a smug grin and Percy's cousins cheered

The monster charged.

Without thinking, I rolled to one side and came up kneeling. As the monster barreled past, I drove the broken horn straight into his side, right up under his furry rib cage. The bull-man roared in agony. He flailed, clawing at his chest, then began to disintegrate—not like my mother, in a flash of golden light, but like crumbling sand, blown away in chunks by the wind, the same way Mrs. Dodds had burst apart.

"Whoop! Go Fish breath!" Thalia cheered as Nico sang,

"Go Percy go! Go Percy go!" and Percy blushed as he was congratulated

The monster was gone.

The rain had stopped. The storm still rumbled, but only in the distance.

"Convenient." Poseidon muttered

I smelled like livestock and my knees were shaking. My head felt like it was splitting open. I was weak and scared and trembling with grief I'd just seen my mother vanish.

I wanted to lie down and cry, but there was Grover, needing my help, so I managed to haul him up and stagger down into the valley, toward the lights of the farmhouse. I was crying, calling for my mother, but I held on to Grover—I wasn't going to let him go.

The last thing I remember is collapsing on a wooden porch, looking up at a ceiling fan circling above me, moths flying around a yellow light, and the stern faces of a familiar-looking bearded man and a pretty girl, her blond hair curled like a princess's.

"That'll be Chiron though, who's the girl?" Athena said while glancing at the giggling demigods and blushing Percy

"Yeah who's the princess? Percy." Nico snickered

"Do you know many princesses?" Thalia snickered

They both looked down at me, and the girl said, "He's the one. He must be."

Aphrodite 'eeped'

As Thalia and Nico snickered, "He's the one alright." As Percy blushed crimson at all the stares

"Silence, Annabeth," the man said. "He's still conscious. Bring him inside."

"Annabeth? As in my Annabeth?" Athena demanded

"Err, yes." Percy said. Athena's eyes blazed and she said,

"You will stay away from her or I'll –"

"Athena, don't bring our rivalry into our kids' lives, again. If Percy is friends with one that implies that they are friends with him so the feeling is mutual so whatever you do to Percy would have to be done to your child and since I know you won't, I'll do it for you. So shut your beak and let whoever is reading next read." Poseidon chastised

*Percy has the curse of Achilles, I know, but he hasn't got iron skin his flesh is still flesh but I feel that while swords and weapons bounce of it, he still feels an impact he just doesn't really notice it. So if someone were to punch him he would feel the impact but not the pain otherwise he wouldn't be able to feel anything so e.g. if he were to hold some-ones hand *cough* Annabeth, he wouldn't feel her hand or the warmth of it and that would depress Percy and to be unable to feel any-thing physical would be a curse, as if he was numb but could still move his body. So therefor since he can't pick and choose what he wants to be able to feel, he must still feel impacts and touches.

So Nico elbowing him hurts as much as elbowing someone does but Percy felt the pressure but no pain so he I suppose is sort of winded and at the beginning when Percy fell out of the roof he felt the impact but no pain so he sort of jarred his body sort of like sitting up in bed too quickly I suppose (what with the Styx) also his mind would be screaming that it should feel pain even though her didn't so he was momentarily unconscious or dazed until he recovered from the panic of the fall and etc.

*1 Poseidon is a very powerful god with a very large domain, Earthquakes (The Land), the Oceans and Seas (Water), Hurricanes (The Sky) and any creature that entails such as sea creatures/monsters (he created the Cretan Bull in some myths which is the father of the Minotaur, the kraken is also a sea monster, in the myths there are a lot of dangerous mythical Horses, he created horses and it's cast offs (such as zebra, giraffes and camels),or the Cyclops who can be master blacksmiths so in the monster and creature category he's pretty well of) and somewhere I heard that he created the Doors of Death to he has some influence over Tartarus.

He is also very temperamental, his emotions can be slowly built up (like when you're on a rock pool and then suddenly find stranded) or can change at the flip of a switch (like a sudden storm or a hurricane or rough waters) so his emotions can be hidden and unreadable so in Poseidon's case that is bad to be on the receiving end because he's probably thought it through and has a handy curse, threat or monster on hand or his emotions are unreadable and then in a snap he's angry and does something he hasn't thought out so you'll likely be dead pretty quickly and others could be caught up in it so you'll have been stabbed or drowned or something like wise. I wonder which is worse. Luckily this also works the other way around he can be murderous then happy in a snap as well. If you've noticed this behaviour is in Percy as-well just not quite as extreme and he has enough of his mum in him to make the incidents less often sadly with mostly Thalia and sometimes Annabeth (both have parent who are major rivals) they occur.

But otherwise he is a generally nice guy (all warm beaches and calm sparkling oceans) and fun to be around (do you know how playful sea creatures are and how many people and animals play on the beach.)

I don't think a lot of things get Poseidon angry maybe his children in danger or hurt, direct insults to him, Zeus being an ass (in the myths did you notice Poseidon helps Zeus out a lot and doesn't really get any thanks no wonder he caught Zeus in a net), being kept on Olympus (HoO),Hades being an ass, Athena being an ass but the first two probably get him angry pretty quickly, the others probably take longer and don't last as long due to the other gods distracting them and breaking up fights and arguments probably more irritation than anger. The longer he is 'restrained' on Olympus the more irritated he'd get until the dam brakes and he either escapes, or fights or just disappears (like a leak takes ages to notice there is one. At least that is what I think in my opinion.

*2 Thalia is already a tree so Jason has already been at Camp Jupiter for a year or so by now, probably unclaimed until things cool down with the gods for a while but I'm sure a few already know and since Thalia had so much trouble with Hades I doubt Pluto will be all that happy about him nor Poseidon but he won't do anything about it because of Percy.

*3 Apollo is the god of medicine he'd know all about the human body as-well as other things medicine related

*4 wiki/Minotaur I did the story from memory and the Theseus being a child or grandchild (?) of Poseidon from other pjo fics and I liked it, so sorry if you like everything to be perfectly aligned to the myths.


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